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Sanskrit
literature
Introduction
The
classical literature of India written in the Sanskrit language. It may be
divided into the Vedic period (1500? BC-200 BC), when the Vedic form of
Sanskrit was in use, and the Sanskrit period (200 BC-AD 1100?), when
classical Sanskrit had developed from Vedic. Notwithstanding the
chronological continuity of Indian writings, the spirit of Sanskrit-period
literature differs greatly from that of the Vedic period. The chief
distinction between the two is that Vedic literature, consisting of the
Vedas Veda,
Brahmanas, and Upanishads,
is essentially religious, whereas classical Sanskrit literature is, with
rare exceptions, secular. In the Vedas the lyric and legendary forms are
in the service of prayer, or exposition of the ritual; in Sanskrit epics
such as the Mahabharata
and the Ramayana,
didactic, lyric, and dramatic forms have been developed far beyond their
earlier state for more purely literary, aesthetic, or moral purposes. In
Sanskrit literature, moreover, with the exception of the Mahabharata
and the Puranas,
the authors are generally definite persons, more or less well known,
whereas the writings of the Vedic period go back either to families of
poets or to religious schools.
The
form and style of classical Sanskrit literature is, as a rule, different
from that of the Vedas. Vedic prose was developed in the Yajur-Veda,
Brahmanas, and Upanishads to a tolerably high pitch; in classical
Sanskrit, aside from the strained scientific language of philosophical and
grammatical treatises, prose writing is to be found only in fables, fairy
tales, romances, and partly in the drama. Nor has this prose improved in
stylistic quality, as compared with its earlier counterpart. On the
contrary, it has become progressively more awkward, full of long,
difficult compounds and rhetorical constructions. Sanskrit poetry also
differs from Vedic poetry. The bulk of the poetry, especially the epic, is
composed in the sloka meter, a development of the Vedic anushtubh
stanza of four octosyllabic lines of essentially iambic cadence. Numerous
other meters, however, usually built up on Vedic prototypes, have become
more elaborate than their old originals, and in the main, more artistic
and beautiful.
Poetry
Classical
Sanskrit literature may be divided into epic, lyric, didactic, dramatic,
and narrative verses and didactic, dramatic, and narrative prose. Epic
poetry falls into two classes, the freer narrative epic, termed itihasa
("leg-end") or purana ("ancient tale"), and the
artistic or artificial epic, called kavya ("poetic
product"). The great epic called the Mahabharata (between 300
BC and AD300) is by far the most important representative of the purana.
Of somewhat similar free style are the 18 Puranas of a much later date.
The beginnings of the artistic style are seen in the Ramayana
(begun 3rd century BC). The finished epic kavya form, however, was
not evolved until the time of Kalidasa, about the 5th century AD. This
poet and dramatist is the author of the two best-known Sanskrit artistic
epics, the Kumarasambhava and the Raghuvamsa.
Lyric
poetry has its individual traits, the most important of which is the
refined elaboration of the single strophe, as opposed to continuous
composition. The forms of these strophes are highly elaborate and almost
infinitely varied. The most elaborated of the longer lyric compositions
are the Meghaduta and the Ritusamhara, both works by
Kalidasa. The theme of the former work is a message sent on a cloud by an
exiled yaksha, or supernatural being, to his love. The Ritusamhara
is famous for its descriptions of tropical nature in India, interspersed
with expressions of emotion.
The
bulk of lyric poetry, however, is in single miniature stanzas, which
suggest strongly the didactic proverb poetry that Indians also cultivated
with great success. The most famous collection of such stanzas, that of
Bhartrihari, perhaps the greatest poet of India next to Kalidasa, consists
of lyric, didactic, and erotic poems. Considered the second great master
of the erotic stanza is Amaru, who is probably of a later date than
Bhartrihari. His collection is known as Amarusataka.
Even
in lyrics, however, the Indian tendency toward speculation and reflection,
which plays such an important part in Hinduism, is evident. Not only has
this tendency been the basis of much that is best in the religion and
philosophy of India, but it has also assumed shape in another important
product of Indian literature, the gnomic, didactic, sententious stanza,
which may be called the proverb. Some 8000 of these stanzas have been
collected from all parts of Sanskrit literature; they begin with the Mahabharata
and are found in almost every moral appended to the fable literature.
Their keynote is again the vanity of human life and the sublime happiness
that attends withdrawal from the world.
Drama
The
Sanskrit drama is one of the latest, although one of the most interesting,
products of Sanskrit literature. Sanskrit drama probably dates from the
3rd century AD. The Sanskrit name for "drama" is nataka,
from the root nat, nrit, meaning "to dance," and it is
certain that dances contributed to the development of the drama. Dancing
played a considerable part in various religious ceremonies; at a later
period the worship of Shiva and Vishnu, and especially of Vishnu's
incarnation, the god Krishna, was accompanied by pantomimic dances. The
pantomimes reproduced the heroic deeds of these gods and were accompanied
by songs. Popular performances of this sort, the yatras, have
survived to the present day in the Bengal region of the Indian
subcontinent.
The
themes of Indian drama are for the most part those of the heroic legends
in the epics or in historical Indian courts. On the whole, the dramatic
themes are not different from those of the tales and romances in narrative
form.
The
chief dramatic writer of India is Kalidasa, the author of Shakuntala,
master also of epic and lyric poetry. From a time somewhat earlier than
that of Kalidasa comes the drama Mricchakatika, said to have been
written by King Sudraka but more probably composed by Dandin or by some
other poet at Sudraka's court. During the 7th century, the Indian emperor
Harsha is reputed to have written three well-known dramas. The dramas of
Bhavabhuti, who is, next to Kalidasa and Dandin, the most distinguished of
the Hindu dramatists, date from the 8th century.
Prose
No
department of Indian literature is more interesting to the student of
comparative literature than that comprising the fables and fairy tales.
Scarcely a single motif of European fable collections is not to be found
in some Indian collection, and there is good reason to believe that the
bulk of this kind of literature originated in India. The earliest and most
important collection of Indian fables is Buddhist and is written in the
Pali language; it appears to date to the 4th century BC. This collection,
comprising stories of former lives of Buddha, is known as the Jatakas. The
two most important Sanskrit collections, the Panchatantra and the Hitopadesa,
are both based on Buddhist sources.
A noteworthy feature
of the Sanskrit collections of fables and fairy tales is the insertion of
a number of different stories within the frame of a single narrative, a
style of narration that was borrowed by other Oriental peoples, the most
familiar instance being that of the Arabian Nights. The Panchatantra
passed from a Pahlavi translation of the original Sanskrit into Arabic,
Greek, Persian, Turkish, Syriac, Hebrew, Latin, and German and from German
into other European languages. The Hitopadesa, said to have been
composed by Narayana, purports to be an excerpt from the Panchatantra
and other books. The most famous collection of fairy tales is the very
extensive Kathasaritsagara, composed by the Kashmiri poet Somadeva
about AD1070.
India
abounds in all forms of scientific literature, written in tolerably good
Sanskrit even to the present day. The ancient legal books of the Veda
continue in modern poetical Dharmashastras and Smritis, of
which the Manu Smriti, or Laws of Manu, and Yajnavalkya
are the most famous examples. Rooted in the Upanishads are the six Hindu
systems of philosophy (Vedanta, Yoga, Mimamsa, Nyaya, Sankhya, and
Vaisheshika) and their abundant writings. Grammar, etymology,
lexicography, prosody, rhetoric, music, and architecture each have a
technical literature of wide scope and importance. The earliest works of
an etymological character are the Vedic glosses of Yaska; later (4th
century BC), but far more important, is the grammar of Panini and his
commentators Katyayana and Patañjali. Mathematics and astronomy were
eagerly cultivated from very early times, the so-called Arabic numerals
coming to the Arabs from India and designated by them as Hindu numerals.
Indian medical science may have begun to develop before the beginning of
the Christian era, for one of its leading authorities, Caraka, was the
chief physician of King Kanishka. The beginnings of Indian medical science
reach back to the writings in the Atharva-Veda.
Based on "Sanskrit Literature," Microsoft® Encarta® Online
Encyclopedia 2000
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