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458 Chanakya, and we are also told that he had a dispu- tation with Panini himself This last story no doubt owes its origin to the fact of KAtydyana’s having criti- - cised Panini; the contemporaneous existence of the two grammarians need not be inferred from this ‘story. KA&ty4yana told the tales (which he had overheard as'an " attendant on Siva) to a PisAcha K4nabhati (who was ~ formerly a Vaksha,) and KAnabhiti the Pisdcha: told it in his Paisachi language to Gunddhya, another. attend- ant on Siva, but sent to earth as a mortal. Gunddhya "gave the fables to Satavahana, king of Pratishthdna on the Goddvari, once the capital. of Southern India ; - and Satavahana published the great collection of fables. All that we can gather from this elaborate intro. ductory story is that the compifation of the Brihat Katha was made in Southern India in the Paisdc _ dialect, and that Gunadhya was. probably the com: - piler. _f 3 : Somadeva’s Sanscrit version, the Katha Sarit SAgara is divided into 18 books and 124 chapters, and contains nearly everything in the way of folklore _ known in India! We find in it occasional stories: from the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, some tales from the Puranas, much of the fables of the Panchatantra, the whole of the twenty-five tales of a demon known as the Betal Pachisi, some of the:tales which we believe occur in the Sinhasan Batisi, and many adventures of the great Vikramaditya of Ujjayini. The tales throw 452 PAURANIK PERIOD. [BOOK v. much light on the manners and customs and the domes- “ tic life of the people. With regard to Vikramaditya of Ujjayini we are told that he was the son of Mahendrdditya by the queen Saumyadarsané, and that he had a second name Vishama Sila (Siladitya?) We are also told that he was sent to the earth, because the gods complained Of the oppression of the Mlechchhas in India,—and Vik_ rama fulfilled his destiny and slew the Mlechchhas. The only other well-known work of fiction is the Hitopadesa, which is merely a compilation of a portion of the older Panchatantra. It is remarkable that all these works of fiction are in Sanscrit, although the Prakrits were the spoken tongues.in India in the Pauranik Period. Vararachi, one of the “ nine gems ” of Vikramdaditya’s court, is the oldest grammarian who treats of the Pra- krit dialects. He distinguishes four distinct dialects, viz. the Mahdréshtr? or Prakrit properly so called ; the Saurasené very similar to the Mah4rdshtrf and like it derived from the Sanserit; the Pazsdchf and the Mégadht which last two are said to be derived from the Sauraseni, These Prakrit dialects gradually came into use in Northern India from the older Pali language which was the sacred language of the Buddhists, and had been the spoken tongue for a thousand years or more. Indeed, the political and religious causes which ushered in a new form of Hinduism in the place of declining of CHAP. XML] FICTION. 453 Buddhism had undoubtedly some infhuence in. establish- ing the newer Prakrit dialects in the place of the older Pali, : . Political and religious changes have generally been attended in India and elsewhere,—not indeed with sudden changes in the spoken tongue,—but with such changes, (slow and gradual in themselves), being authoritatively and suddenly recognized. When the vigorous colonists on the banks of the Ganges and the Jumna left behind their old mother country, the Panjab, in learning and civilization, the Sanscrit of the Rig Veda was replaced by the Sanscrit of the BrAhmanas. With the rise of Magadha and of Gautama Buddha, Pali replaced the Sanscrit of the Brahmanas. With the decline of Buddhism and the rise of Hinduism under Vikramaditya the Prakrits took the place of the Pali, And lastly with the fall of ancient races and the rise of the Rajputs in the roth century A. D. was witnessed the rise of the ' Hindi language which is still spoken in Northern India. All this is intelligible. But the readers of Kalidasa ‘and of Bhavabhiti will naturally enquire, Did those poets write in a dead language? Is it possible to compose a Sakuntalf, a Meghadiita or.an Uttara Charita in a dead Janguage? Does the history of other nations ~ furnish us with one single instance of such works of matchless beauty being composed in a dead language ? Phose who have compared the Prakrits with Sanscrit will find no difficulty in answering these questions. —_ —— 454 PAURANIK PERIOD, [BooK V¥- Sanscrit was not a-dead language in the Pauranik Period in the sense in which Latin is now a dead language in Europe. The difference between Sanscrit and the Prakrits is far less than the difference between the Latin and even the Italian. When the Prakrits were commonly spoken, Sanscrit was still understood .and even spoken in courts. Learned men carried on oral controversies in Sanscrit. AI! proclamations and state manifestoes were in Sanscrit. Pandits carried on conversation in the court as in the schoolroom in Sanscrit. Poems were recited and plays were rehearsed in Sanscrit. All men of education and culture under- stood Sanscrit and often spoke Sanscrit. Probably the common people in towns who spoke the Prakrits understood ordinary easy Sanscrit. The educated and the learned were certainly perfectly at home with Sanscrit. It was the language which they always read, which they often spoke, and in which they composed and thought, and even conversed. Sanscrit was not therefore a dead language in the Pauranik Period in the sense in which it is a dead language now. And Kalidasa and Bhavabhati did not compose ina dead ; language, properly so called, when they wrote the Sakuntalé or the Uttara Charita. CHAPTER. XIV. EARLY PAURANIK CIVILIZATION. WE will now close this rapid and imperfect. History: of Civilization in Ancient India, It was impossible within our limits to attempt anything like a compre- hensive or exhaustive account of this vast subject,. ' We have rather tried to connect together only the leading facts of Indian History, and-to present a con-: nected serics of outline sketches, . illustrating Hindu, Civilization in successive ages. If in these portraits. our countrymen have recognised the features of our: ancient forefathers, however indistinctly, our labour ‘has not been thrown away. We now crave their attention for a few moments lenger to the last pages of our album, illustrating the social manners and civilization of the last epoch of Hindu History, anterior to the Mahommedan conquest. - This fast epoch divides itself inte two well sare , periods. The manners of the Rajputs of Delhi and . Ajmir in the rth and rath centuries were somewhat | different from those of the times of Vikraméditya and, Siladitya. The Rajputs belong _to modern history, Vikramaditya and Siladitya belong to ancient history. The dark ages which intervened, in the gth and 10th 456 PAURANIK PERIOD. [BOOK Vv. centuries, divide the ancient period from the modern period in India. In the present chapter, we will” eonhne our observa- tions therefore to the civilization of the Hindus during the early Pauranik Period from the sixth to the ninth ‘century A, D. We will attempt to paint the social life of the Hindus of the time of Kalidasa and Bhava- bhiti; and the immortal works of these and other poets of the period will furnish us with the materials -of our picture. In the following chapter we will try to portray the civilization of the later Pauranik Period, from the tenth to the twelfth century, and we shall obtain our materials from the. notes of a thoughtful, learned and symphathetic foreigner who has left us records of his impressions. Kalidésa himself has in his character of Dushyanta given us a picture of the great kings of his time, of Vikramaditya for instance. We can conceive to some extent the life that was led by the great emperor of Northern India in the midst of his luxurious and jearried court, his guards and his soldiers. Martial in his demeanour and active in his habits, he delighted in war and in hunting, and often took his soldiers, his chariots, his horses and his elephants in great hunting expeditions in the primeval jungles of India. A fool was as invariably the companion of Hindu kings as of European monarchs in the Middle Ages, and the Indian fool was a Brahman, whose stupid apprehen- CHAP. XIV.] EARLY PAURANIK CIVILIZATION. +457 sion, gross tastes, and occasional witty sayings regaled the feisure hours of the king. Soldiers guarded his palace night and day; while in the inner apartments fetnale guards waited on the king, and were under the orders of an aged and faithful chamberlain. To judge from the poet’s account, the great conqueror of ‘the Sakas did not dislike the company of Saka women, who guarded his palace and accompanied ‘him in hunt- ing with bows and arrows, and gracefully decked with flowers, Indeed, if we can rely on the tales of the Katha Sarit Sagara, the emperor of Ujjayini was not very particular as to the race or caste of the lovely damsels whom he wedded one after the othey, after his numerous adventures ; and Madana Sundari, a Bhil princess , was ‘one of the number, her father declasing, * and I, my sovereign will follow you as your slave with twenty thousand archers.” The amorous emperor, we are told in the saine work, fell in love with. Malay4vati, princess of Malayapura, on seeing her picture, and with Kalinga- send, princess of Bengal, on seeing her figure sculptured 4n stone ina Vihara ; and it is needless to state that both princesses eventually found admission into the great king’s extensive seralio! (K. S. S, Book XVII) The poet of Vikaramorvasi and Mélavikagnimitra must have somewhat softened the passionate jealousies and discords which were not unoften witnessed in the royal harem.