English
The poetry does not aspire to the beauty of Kaliddsa’s poems, or the dignity of Bharavi’s work, but the mastery of words and the art of composition are perfect and matchless, and worthy of the author of the epigrammatic Satakas. ' Two other Mahakavyas are also generally studied be Hindu students ; but both these are later productions, and belong probably to the 11th and 12th centuries A.D. One of them is Naishadha of Sri Harsha and the other is Sisupélavadia of Magha. The stories of both are taken from the Mahabharata. Naishadha is the well-known story of Nala and Dam- ayanti, one of the most touching episodes of the great epic. Dr. Bihler fixes the date of this poem in the 12th century. The poet is said by Rajasekhara to have been botn in Benares, but he was certainly familiar with Bengal, and Vidy4pati, a Bengali poet of the 14th cen- tury, claims Sri Harsha to be a Bengali. - It is possible as has been conjectured by some antiquarians that he migrated from the North-West to Bengal. Sisupdlavadha as its name implies is the story of the destruction of the proud king Sisupala by Krishna. It is a distant imitation of Bhaéravi’s Kirat4rjuniya ; and ‘CHAP, Xin] POETRY. 445. the name Mdgha, (a winter month), is probably assumed by the author to indicate that he takes away the glory of BAdravi,(which means the sun}. According to the Bhoja Pravandha he was a conteMpOrny of King Bhoja of Dhara in the 11th century, The most melodious song that has ever e best written in Sanscrit is the. Ga Govinda, written by Jayadeva of Bengal in the 12th century A.D, Jayadeva was a poet of the court of Lakshmana Sena as has been proved by the colophon of an ancient copy of his poem discovered by Dr. Biihler in Kashmir, and he obtained from the king the title of Kavirdja, - His poem relates to the loves of Krishna and Radhé, and has been rendered with matchless grace and beauty into English verse by Sir Edwin Arnold. One extract will suffice. It describes erring Krishna’s amours with other nymphs and describes the gratification of the five senses ; smell, sight, touch, taste and hearing. One with star blossomed champac wreathed, woos hit to rest bis head, On the dark pillow of her breast so tenderly otttspread ; : And o'er his brow with roses blown she fans a fragrance rare, That falls on the enchanted sense like rain in thirsty air ; , While the company of d&msels wave many an odorous spray, And Krishna laughing, toying, sighs the soft spring away. Another gazing in his face, sits wistfully apart, Searching it with those looks of love that leap from heart to heart ; Her eyes-—afire with shy desire, veiled by their lashes black — Speak so that Krishna cannot choose but send the message back ; In the company of damsels whose bright eyes in the ring Shine round him with soft meanings in the merry light of spring, 446 PAURANIK PERIOD. [BOOK V. . The third one of that dazzling band of dwellers in the wood— Body and bosom panting with the pulse. of youthful blood— Leans over him, as in his eax a lightaome thing to speak, And then with leaf-soft Hip imprints a kiss below his cheek ; A kiss that thrills, and Krishna turns at the silken touch To give it back,—Ah Radha ! forgetting thee too much. And one with arch smile beckons him away from Jumna’s banks, Where the tall bamboo bristle like spears in battle ranks, And plucks his cloth to make him come into the mango shade, Where the fruit is ripe and golden, and the milk and cakes are laid ; Oh ! golden red the mangoes, and glad the feasts of spring, And fair the flowers to lie upon and sweet the dancers sing. Sweetest of all that temptress who dances for him now With subtle feet which part and meet in the Ras measure slow, To the chime of silver bangles, and the beat of rose-leaf hands, And pipe and lute and cymbal played by the woodland bands ; So that wholly passion-laden—eye, ear, sense, soul o’ercome— Krishna is theirs in the forest ; his heart forgets its home. CHAPTER XIIL FICTION. ‘INDIA was not better known to the ancient nations for her sciénce and poetry than as the birth-place of fables and fiction! The oldest Aryan fables that are to be found anywhere are in the Jataka tales, dating from some centuries before Christ, and Dr. Rhys . Davids has pointed out that many of them have tra- ‘velled to different parts of Europe and have assumed various modern shapes, The fables of the Panchatantra were probably cur- rent in India for many centuries before they were com- ‘piled in their present shape in easy and graceful Sans- crit prose. The work was translated into Persian in the reign of Nousharwan (531 to 572 A. D.), and it is certain therefore that the Sanscrit compilation was ‘made in the sixth century A. D. if not earlier. The Persian translation was rendered into Arabic, and the Arabic translation was rendered into Greek by Symeon Seth about 1080 A.D, The Greek version was again rendered into Latin by Possinus. A Hebrew transla. tion of the work was made by Rabbi Joel about 1250. A Spanish translation of the Arabic version was_pub- lished about 1251 A. D. The first German translations 448 PAURANIK PERIOD. [BOOK v. were published in the fifteenth century, and since then the work has been rendered into all the languages of Europe, and is known as the fables of Pilpay or Bidpai.* Thus for many centuries the juvenile population. of the world was amused with the simple but ingenious tales of animals which a Hindu compiled from the current folklore of his countrymen. When we proceed from the sixth to the seventh cen. tury we find a great change in Sanscrit prose. More ambitious works were eomposed in a. style which is more ornate and elaborate, but stilted and artificial, Dandin composed his Dasakumaracharita probably at the very commencement of the seventh century. The work, as its name signifies, is the story of ten princes who meet with various adventures, mast of which are of course supernatural. The style, though sufficiently ornate and artificial, is yet less extravagant than that of Kadamvari. Banabhatta, the renowned writer of the Kadamvart was, as we have seen before, a courtier of Siladitya II, and was the author of the RatnaAvalt drama, and of a life of the emperor called Harshacharita. Bana- bhatta’s father was Chitrabhanu, and his mother was Rajyadevi; and Chitrabhanu died when young: Bana was only 14 -years of age. Bhadrandarayana, Isana and Mayfira were among Bana’s early friends. eee *See Tawney’s translation of Kashé Sarit Sagara, Vol. Ul, p. 43: note. ‘ : | CHAR. XIIL} _ FICTION, — 449 The story of Kadamvart is wild and weird, and too long to tell ;—-the same couple of lovers go through more than one life,and still feel the same irresistible attraction for each other. Scenes of overwhelming passion, intense sorrow, irresistible love and austere penances in wild soli- tudes are depicted with power and with a wonderful command of language. There is little of character in the various personages, They are. all carried away by the vicissitudes of fortune or by torrents of feeling which have the power of fate. It is this which Hindu writers delight in depicting ; of determined efforts of the will in supporting or combating the ordinary ills of life, there are few descriptions in Hindu works of ima- gination, For the rest, the style of composition, in spite of its wonderful power, is ornate and redundant taboured and extravagant, beyond all reasonable bounds ; and often the same verbose sentence with strings of adjectives and long compounds, with a profusion of similes and figures of speech, run through several pages ! ' Subandhu also lived in the same reign and wrote the Vasavadatté, a shorter tale. Prince Kandarpakatu and princess Vasavadatta fell in love on dreaming of each other; and the prince went to Kusumapura (Pataliputra), met the princess, and carried her away onan aereal steed to the Vindhya mountains. There he fell asleep, and when he awoke he found. her not. On this Kandarpakatu was about to commit. suicide. when a voice from the sky Beseented. him and promised RCOD,A LHL . - ; 29 450 PAURANIK PERIOD. [BOOK Vv. him eventual reunion with his beloved bride. After long wanderings he found a stone figure resembling his Jong lost wife ; he touched it, and lo! VAsavadatta waked to life. A holy saint had turned her into stone,— with the merciful provision however that she would be restored to life on being touched by her husband. We have yet one or two other important works of fiction to speak of. The Brihat Katha is a collection | of fables and tales which were long cyrrent among the people in the PaisAchf dialect. Inthe 12th century A.D. Somadeva, a Kashmirian by birth, abridged it and put it into Sanscrit in order to console Queen Siryavati of Kashmir, on the death of her grandson Harshadeva in 1125 A. L.; and this abridged compilation is known as the Katha Safit Sagara, “The book,” says the compiler, “is precisely on the model of that from which it is taken ; there is not even the slightest devia- tion ; only such language is selected as tends to abridge the prolixity of the work.” * A divine origin must needs be given to ‘this compi- lation, and its existence in the PaisAchi dialect must neéds be explained. This is done in the usual manner. Siva first told the tales to his consort, and an attendant Pushpadanta overheard them. He was theréfore cursed . and sent down to the earth as a mortal, and was born as Katyayana, the critic of Panini. He was a minister of Nanda, and a contemporary of Chandragupta and “* C, H. Tawney’s translation. . CHAP. XHL] FICTION.