SANSKRIT STUDIES
SANSKRIT POETRY:
A HISTORICAL RETROSPECT
To the well-known difficulty of treatment which is inherent in all art, there is to be added in the case of Sanskrit Poetry, another arising from the immensity of its range. Poems in Sans- krit are to be counted by hundreds and they cover a period of several centuries especially if we include the Veda also within our purview. I need hardly point out that my purpose is not to survey the whole of this vast and difficult field. The task I have set myself this evening is much humbler. I wish to place before you two well-marked tendencies in Sanskrit poetry which bear to each other a relationship of historical sequence and to show that the change of ideal implied by them is in perfect harmony with the general development of mental life in ancient India. As a prelim- inary to what I shall say, I may remark that in matters like poetry which are the products ©f human feeling and thought, advance from one stage to another is never absolute and final. Owing to the ineradicable diversity of human temperament, whatever ideal once becomes deeply rooted in the social consciousness tends to persist ever afterwards and hence we find that the old is often preserved by the side of the new. Nevertheless each stage of development has its own dominant tendency through which we get an insight into the essential spirit of that stage.
The earliest Indian Poetry that has come down to us is found in thej Rgveda. It is well known that this work consists of sacred songs and that its interest to a modern student is historical, not poetical. But at the same time, it would be incorrect to think that the work is devoid of aesthetic merit. Religious fervour everywhere gives rise to true poetry and India is not an exception to the rule. The Rgveda has a poetic side also and the poetical quality exhibited in some of the hymns is indeed very high. Vedic poetry, like Vedic religion with which it is closely connected, is the outcome of the personification of the visible powers of nature. The poets, no doubt, address these powers as gods but, generally speaking, there
