पृष्ठम्:Sanskrit Literature.djvu/१०३

ĀRYA ÇŪRA AND LATER POETRY 71 what is stated in the prose; this is akin to the practice of the Brāhmaṇas to adduce occasionally Yajñagāthās, verses on sacri- ficial points, in their discussions, and to the habit of the Dharma- sūtras to enforce the rules which they lay down with verse cita- tions. Here and there in the Upanişads we find similar cases, verses being cited in illustration and explanation of a doctrine stated in prose; in these cases it is made quite clear that the verses are quotations, from which, no doubt, it was an easy step to the writer composing verses of his own to enliven his theme or summarize his moral. The Kārikās found in the Mahābhāṣya prove that grammarians recognized the convenience of thus putting on record in easily remembered and accurate form their observations on disputed points. In the case of narrative the evidence seems clearly to indicate that originally in India prose and verse were used independently; if so, it is easy to understand how they could come to be combined, especially as in the other instances adduced above there already existed examples of the combination of verse and prose in one literary form. The few cases in the epic of prose and verse combined seem to be dis- tinctly instances of contamination, not remnants of an older form of composition. How far models in Pāli were available for the author of the Fatakamālā or Kumāralāta we cannot, of course, prove, for the Jataka book in Pāli as we have it presents grave problems which are yet unsolved. But the Kunāla Fataka at any rate suggests that it would be unwise to claim that the transition first took place in Sanskrit versions of Jataka tales. Other Buddhist writeis contributed much less to literature than to philosophy. The mysterious Nāgārjuna, perhaps of the latter part of the second century A.D., in his Madhyamakakārikās shows a perverse ability to develop paradoxes, while Ārya Deva (c. A.D. 250) in his Catuḥçatika¹ shows considerable power of irony in his onslaught on the Brahmanical practice of bathing in the Ganges to remove sin and acquire merit. The Çişyalekha- dharmakavya 2 of Candragomin, in which instruction is given in the form of a letter to a pupil dealing with the essential facts of the . 1 Ed. Calcutta, 1914. On his Hastavalaprakaranavytti, cf. Thomas and Ui, JRAS. 1918, pp. 267 ff. Cf. P. L. Vaidya, Études sur Aryadeva (Paris, 1923). 2 Ed. I. P. Minayeff, Zapiski, iv.