CLASSICAL SANSKRIT LITERATURE
We welcome this addition to the Hmtage series 1 for it so well supplies the long-felt want of a satisfactory text-book on the history of Sanskrit literature which students in our colleges may use. Prof. Macdonell’s work on the subject once met this want well enough, but it has remained unrevised for a quarter of a century during which period much new material has accumulated and the need for modifying many an old opinion has arisen. Dr. Winternitz’s Geschichte is no doubt quite up-to-date ; but it is in German and may therefore be left out of account so far as the generality of Indian students are concerned until its promised translation into English, under the auspices of the Calcutta University, is issued. The present work is not so extensive in its scope as either of these. As its title shows, it is confined to the classical period, and even there it leaves out the Drama and stops its review at a . d . 1200. The former deficiency is made good by the author’s treatise on the Sanskrit Drama recently announced as published; and nobody need complain of the latter, for whatever is of real worth in Sanskrit literature is more likely to be found before a . d . 1 200 than after. With- in these limits, it must be said that the work has been admirably done Owing to the sad lack of definiteness in the matter of dates, the author cannot follow the chronological order in dealing with the subject. So he adopts a classification based upon form and subject- matter, restricting the chronological treatment to each separate head. The first chapter discusses the important question whether Sanskrit or Prakrit was the vehicle of early secular literature in India. Dr. Keith ably maintains that it was Sanskrit and shows that already in the time of Patanjali (150 b.c.) all the main branches of Sanskrit literature were known. The three chapters that follow treat of Kavya or ‘Court Poetry’ as it is sometimes styled to indicate the circumstances in which it throve and possibly also took its birth. One of these chapters — the best in the book- -is entirely devoted to an appreciative consideration of Kalidasa, the prince of Indian poets. Of the five subsequent chapters, each one takes up for discussion some one or other of the remaining departments of
1 Classical Sanskrit Literature . A. Berriedale Keith, D.C.L., D. Litt., Association Press , Calcutta. ( The Heritage of India Series,)
