60 AQVAGHOSA AND EARLY BUDDHIST KAVYA
among the characteristics of the former was the love of long compounds not merely in prose, where they were accepted even by the Vaidarbha, but in verse also ; love co^literation and of
'-harsh sound effects; the use of recondite "etymalogTzing, phrase- ology, and a desire for strength resulting often in bomba'Sf* alia affectation. It has been suggested by Jacobi * that the contrast of styles has a historical basis; Sanskrit poetry was. practised, it is argued, eagerly in the east and Sanskrit poetry there had developed the evil effects of old age, before the art became current in the west and south. The' simpler style of the south^ was also on this view influenced by the freshness of the lyric of Maharastra born of close contact with the people. It is already a serious objection to such a conclusion that in the Natyaqastra we find the qualities which Dandin ascribes as characteristic of the Vaidarbha ascribed to the Kavya style in general ; this is a strong suggestion that at the time of the Natyaqastra there had not developed those characteristics of the Gauda style, and that they emerged gradually with the development of poetry at the courts of princes of Bengal. This view gains support from the fact that, though Dandin praises the Vaidarbha style, and evidently disapproves of the Gauda, in practice poets of later date often affect the Gauda manner. Acvaghosa, however,
^affords a more convincing proofj>till of the e arly character of the Vaidarbha.; his style umnTstakably is of the Vaidarbha type ; as Bana later says of the western poets, it aims at sense rather than mere ornamenT; it is his aim to narrate, to describe, to preach his curious but not unattractive philosophy of renunciation of selfish desire and universal active benevolence and effort for the good, and by the clarity, vividness, and.elegance' of nis diction to attract the minds of those to whom blunt truths and pedestrian statements would not appeal. This project left no room for mere
^elegance or for deliberate^straming after effect, and thus it results that Acvaghosa's works attain a .high measure of attractiveness, especially when we make the necessary allowance for the decidedly bad condition of the'text tradition of both epics. Simple.of course, in the sense in which it can be applied to English poetry, is an inappropriate iepuriet as regards any Sanskrit Kavya, but rela- tively to ihe later standard, even in some measure to Kalidasa, 1 Ausgeitiahlte Erzahlungen in Mdhdidshtrt, pp. xvif.
