A History of Sanskrit Literature

by Arthur Anthony Macdonell

Ethical Poetry.

The proneness of the Indian mind to reflection not only produced important results in religion, philosophy, and science; it also found a more abundant expression in poetry than the literature of any other nation can boast. Scattered throughout the most various departments of Sanskrit literature are innumerable apophthegms in which wise and noble, striking and original thoughts often appear in a highly finished and poetical garb. These are plentiful in the law-books; in the epic and the drama they are frequently on the lips of heroes, sages, and gods; and in fables are constantly uttered by tigers, jackals, cats, and other animals. Above all, the Mahābhārata, which, to the pious Hindu, constitutes a moral encyclopædia, is an inexhaustible mine of proverbial philosophy. It is, however, natural that ethical maxims should be introduced in greatest abundance into works which, like the Panchatantra and Hitopadeça, were intended to be handbooks of practical moral philosophy.

Owing to the universality of this mode of expression in Sanskrit literature, there are but few works consisting exclusively of poetical aphorisms. The most important are the two collections by the highly-gifted Bhartṛihari, entitled respectively Nītiçataka, or “Century of Conduct,” and Vairāgya-çataka, or “Century of Renunciation.” Others are the Çānti-çataka, or “Century of Tranquillity,” by a Kashmirian poet named Çilhaṇa; the Moha-mudgara, or “Hammer of Folly,” a short poem commending the relinquishment of worldly desires, and wrongly attributed to Çankarāchārya; and the Chāṇakya-çataka, the “Centuries of Chāṇakya,” the reputed author of which was famous in India as a master of diplomacy, and is the leading character in the political drama Mudrā-rākshasa. The Nīti-manjarī, or “Cluster of Blossoms of Conduct,” which has not yet been published, is a collection of a peculiar kind. The moral maxims which it contains are illustrated by stories, and these are taken exclusively from the Rigveda. It consists of about 200 çlokas, and was composed by an author named Dyā Dviveda who accompanied his work with a commentary. In the latter he quotes largely from the Bṛihåddevatā, Sāyaṇa on the Rigveda, and other authors.

There are also some modern anthologies of Sanskrit gnomic poetry. One of these is Çrīdharadāsa’s Sadukti-karṇāmṛita, or “Ear-nectar of Good Maxims,” containing quotations from 446 poets, mostly of Bengal, and compiled in 1205 A.D. The Çārngadhara-paddhati, or “Anthology of Çārngadhara,” dating from the fourteenth century, comprises about 6000 stanzas culled from 264 authors. The Subhāshitāvalī, or “Series of Fine Sayings,” compiled by Vallabhadeva, contains some 3500 stanzas taken from about 350 poets. All that is best in Sanskrit sententious poetry has been collected by Dr. Böhtlingk, the Nestor of Indianists, in his Indische Sprüche. This work contains the text, critically edited and accompanied by a prose German translation, of nearly 8000 stanzas, which are culled from the whole field of classical Sanskrit literature and arranged according to the alphabetical order of the initial word.

Though composed in Pāli, the Dhammapada may perhaps be mentioned here. It is a collection of aphorisms representing the most beautiful, profound, and poetical thoughts in Buddhist literature.

The keynote prevailing in all this poetry is the doctrine of the vanity of human life, which was developed before the rise of Buddhism in the sixth century B.C., and has dominated Indian thought ever since. There is no true happiness, we are here taught, but in the abandonment of desire and retirement from the world. The poet sees the luxuriant beauties of nature spread before his eyes, and feels their charm; but he turns from them sad and disappointed to seek mental calm and lasting happiness in the solitude of the forest. Hence the picture of a pious anchorite living in contemplation is often painted with enthusiasm. Free from all desires, he is as happy as a king, when the earth is his couch, his arms his pillow, the sky his tent, the moon his lamp, when renunciation is his spouse, and the cardinal points are the maidens that fan him with winds. No Indian poet inculcates renunciation more forcibly than Bhartṛihari; the humorous and ironical touches which he occasionally introduces are doubtless due to the character of this remarkable man, who wavered between the spiritual and the worldly life throughout his career.

Renunciation is not, however, the only goal to which the transitoriness of worldly goods leads the gnomic poets of India. The necessity of pursuing virtue is the practical lesson which they also draw from the vanity of mundane existence, and which finds expression in many noble admonitions:—

Transient indeed is human life,

Like the moon’s disc in waters seen:

Knowing how true this is, a man

Should ever practise what is good (Hit. iv. 133).

It is often said that when a man dies and leaves all his loved ones behind, his good works alone can accompany him on his journey to his next life. Nor should sin ever be committed in this life when there is none to see, for it is always witnessed by the “old hermit dwelling in the heart,” as the conscience is picturesquely called.

That spirit of universal tolerance and love of mankind which enabled Buddhism to overstep the bounds not only of caste but of nationality, and thus to become the earliest world-religion, breathes throughout this poetry. Even the Mahābhārata, though a work of the Brahmans, contains such liberal sentiments as this:—

Men of high rank win no esteem

If lacking in good qualities;

A Çūdra even deserves respect

Who knows and does his duty well (xiii. 2610).

The following stanza shows how cosmopolitan Bhartṛihari was in his views:—

“This man’s our own, a stranger that”:

Thus narrow-minded people think.

However, noble-minded men

Regard the whole world as their kin.

But these poets go even beyond the limits of humanity and inculcate sympathy with the joys and sorrows of all creatures:—

To harm no living thing in deed,

In thought or word, to exercise

Benevolence and charity:

Virtue’s eternal law is this (Mahābh. xii. 5997).

Gentleness and forbearance towards good and bad alike are thus recommended in the Hitopadeça:—

Even to beings destitute

Of virtue good men pity show:

The moon does not her light withdraw

Even from the pariah’s abode (i. 63).

The Panchatantra, again, dissuades thus from thoughts of revenge:—

Devise no ill at any time

To injure those that do thee harm:

They of themselves will some day fall,

Like trees that grow on river banks.

The good qualities of the virtuous are often described and contrasted with the characteristics of evil-doers. This, for instance, is how Bhartṛihari illustrates the humility of the benevolent:—

The trees bend downward with the burden of their fruit,

The clouds bow low, heavy with waters they will shed:

The noble hold not high their heads through pride of wealth;

Thus those behave who are on others’ good intent (i. 71).

Many fine thoughts about true friendship and the value of intercourse with good men are found here, often exemplified in a truly poetical spirit. This, for instance, is from the Panchatantra:—

Who is not made a better man

By contact with a noble friend?

A water-drop on lotus-leaves

Assumes the splendour of a pearl (iii. 61).

It is perhaps natural that poetry with a strong pessimistic colouring should contain many bitter sayings about women and their character. Here is an example of how they are often described:—

The love of women but a moment lasts.

Like colours of the dawn or evening red;

Their aims are crooked like a river’s course;

Inconstant are they as the lightning flash;

Like serpents, they deserve no confidence (Kathās. xxxvii. 143).

At the same time there are several passages in which female character is represented in a more favourable light, and others sing the praise of faithful wives.

Here, too, we meet with many pithy sayings about the misery of poverty and the degradation of servitude; while the power of money to invest the worthless man with the appearance of every talent and virtue is described with bitter irony and scathing sarcasm.

As might be expected, true knowledge receives frequent and high appreciation in Sanskrit ethical poetry. It is compared with a rich treasure which cannot be divided among relations, which no thief can steal, and which is never diminished by being imparted to others. Contempt, on the other hand, is poured on pedantry and spurious learning. Those who have read many books, without understanding their sense, are likened to an ass laden with sandal wood, who feels only the weight, but knows nothing of the value of his burden.

As the belief in transmigration has cast its shadow over Indian thought from pre-Buddhistic times, it is only natural that the conception of fate should be prominent in Sanskrit moral poetry. Here, indeed, we often read that no one can escape from the operation of destiny, but at the same time we find constant admonitions not to let this fact paralyse human effort. For, as is shown in the Hitopadeça and elsewhere, fate is nothing else than the result of action done in a former birth. Hence every man can by right conduct shape his future fate, just as a potter can mould a lump of clay into whatever form he desires. Human action is thus a necessary complement to fate; the latter cannot proceed without the former any more than a cart, as the Hitopadeça expresses it, can move with only one wheel. This doctrine is inculcated with many apt illustrations. Thus in one stanza of the Hitopadeça it is pointed out that “antelopes do not enter into the mouth of the sleeping lion”; in another the question is asked, “Who without work could obtain oil from sesamum seeds?” Or, as the Mahābhārata once puts it, fate without human action cannot be fulfilled, just as seed sown outside the field bears no fruit.

For those who are suffering from the assaults of adverse fate there are many exhortations to firmness and constancy. The following is a stanza of this kind from the Panchatantra:—

In fortune and calamity

The great ever remain the same:

The sun is at its rising red,

Red also when about to set.

Collected in the ethico-didactic works which have been described in this chapter, and scattered throughout the rest of the literature, the notions held by the Brahmans in the sphere of moral philosophy have never received a methodical treatment, as in the Pāli literature of Buddhism. In the orthodox systems of Hindu philosophy, to which we now turn, they find no place.

Chapter XV

Philosophy

The beginnings of Indian philosophy, which are to be found in the latest hymns of the Rigveda and in the Atharvaveda, are concerned with speculations on the origin of the world and on the eternal principle by which it is created and maintained. The Yajurveda further contains fantastic cosmogonic legends describing how the Creator produces all things by means of the omnipotent sacrifice. With these Vedic ideas are intimately connected, and indeed largely identical, those of the earlier Upanishads. This philosophy is essentially pantheistic and idealistic. By the side of it grew up an atheistic and empirical school of thought, which in the sixth century B.C. furnished the foundation of the two great unorthodox religious systems of Buddhism and Jainism.

The Upanishad philosophy is in a chaotic condition, but the speculations of this and of other schools of thought were gradually reduced to order and systematised in manuals from about the first century of our era onwards. Altogether nine systems may be distinguished, some of which must in their origin go back to the beginning of the sixth century B.C. at least. Of the six systems which are accounted orthodox no less than four were originally atheistic, and one remained so throughout. The strangeness of this fact disappears when we reflect that the only conditions of orthodoxy in India were the recognition of the class privileges of the Brahman caste and a nominal acknowledgment of the infallibility of the Veda, neither full agreement with Vedic doctrines nor the confession of a belief in the existence of God being required. With these two limitations the utmost freedom of thought prevailed in Brahmanism. Hence the boldest philosophical speculation and conformity with the popular religion went hand and hand, to a degree which has never been equalled in any other country. Of the orthodox systems, by far the most important are the pantheistic Vedānta, which, as continuing the doctrines of the Upanishads, has been the dominant philosophy of Brahmanism since the end of the Vedic period, and the atheistic Sānkhya, which, for the first time in the history of the world, asserted the complete independence of the human mind and attempted to solve its problems solely by the aid of reason.

On the Sānkhya were based the two heterodox religious systems of Buddhism and Jainism, which denied the authority of the Veda, and opposed the Brahman caste system and ceremonial. Still more heterodox was the Materialist philosophy of Chārvāka, which went further and denied even the fundamental doctrines common to all other schools of Indian thought, orthodox and unorthodox, the belief in transmigration dependent on retribution, and the belief in salvation or release from transmigration.

The theory that every individual passes after death into a series of new existences in heavens or hells, or in the bodies of men and animals, or in plants on earth, where it is rewarded or punished for all deeds committed in a former life, was already so firmly established in the sixth century B.C., that Buddha received it without question into his religious system; and it has dominated the belief of the Indian people from those early times down to the present day. There is, perhaps, no more remarkable fact in the history of the human mind than that this strange doctrine, never philosophically demonstrated, should have been regarded as self-evident for 2500 years by every philosophical school or religious sect in India, excepting only the Materialists. By the acceptance of this doctrine the Vedic optimism, which looked forward to a life of eternal happiness in heaven, was transformed into the gloomy prospect of an interminable series of miserable existences leading from one death to another. The transition to the developed view of the Upanishads is to be found in the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa (above, p. 223).

How is the origin of the momentous doctrine which produced this change to be accounted for? The Rigveda contains no traces of it beyond a couple of passages in the last book which speak of the soul of a dead man as going to the waters or plants. It seems hardly likely that so far-reaching a theory should have been developed from the stray fancies of one or two later Vedic poets. It seems more probable that the Aryan settlers received the first impulse in this direction from the aboriginal inhabitants of India. As is well known, there is among half-savage tribes a wide-spread belief that the soul after death passes into the trunks of trees and the bodies of animals. Thus the Sonthals of India are said even at the present day to hold that the souls of the good enter into fruit-bearing trees. But among such races the notion of transmigration does not go beyond a belief in the continuance of human existence in animals and trees. If, therefore, the Aryan Indians borrowed the idea from the aborigines, they certainly deserve the credit of having elaborated out of it the theory of an unbroken chain of existences, intimately connected with the moral principle of requïtal. The immovable hold it acquired on Indian thought is doubtless due to the satisfactory explanation it offered of the misfortune or prosperity which is often clearly caused by no action done in this life. Indeed, the Indian doctrine of transmigration, fantastic though it may appear to us, has the twofold merit of satisfying the requirement of justice in the moral government of the world, and at the same time inculcating a valuable ethical principle which makes every man the architect of his own fate. For, as every bad deed done in this existence must be expiated, so every good deed will be rewarded in the next existence. From the enjoyment of the fruits of actions already done there is no escape; for, in the words of the Mahābhārata, “as among a thousand cows a calf finds its mother, so the deed previously done follows after the doer.”

The cycle of existences (saṃsāra) is regarded as having no beginning, for as every event of the present life is the result of an action done in a past one, the same must hold true of each preceding existence ad infinitum. The subsequent effectiveness of guilt and of merit, commonly called adṛishṭa or “the unseen,” but often also simply karma, “deed or work,” is believed to regulate not only the life of the individual, but the origin and development of everything in the world; for whatever takes place cannot but affect some creature, and must therefore, by the law of retribution, be due to some previous act of that creature. In other words, the operations of nature are also the results of the good or bad deeds of living beings. There is thus no room for independent divine rule by the side of the power of karma, which governs everything with iron necessity. Hence, even the systems which acknowledge a God can only assign to him the function of guiding the world and the life of creatures in strict accordance with the law of retribution, which even he cannot break. The periodic destruction and renewal of the universe, an application of the theory on a grand scale, forms part of the doctrine of saṃsāra or cycle of existence.

Common to all the systems of philosophy, and as old as that of transmigration, is the doctrine of salvation, which puts an end to transmigration. All action is brought about by desire, which, in its turn is based on avidyā, a sort of “ignorance,” that mistakes the true nature of things, and is the ultimate source of transmigration. Originally having only the negative sense of non-knowledge (a-vidyā), the word here came to have the positive sense of “false knowledge.” Such ignorance is dispelled by saving knowledge, which, according to every philosophical school of India, consists in some special form of cognition. This universal knowledge, which is not the result of merit, but breaks into life independently, destroys, the subsequent effect of works which would otherwise bear fruit in future existences, and thus puts an end to transmigration. It cannot, however, influence those works the fruit of which has already begun to ripen. Hence, the present life continues from the moment of enlightenment till definite salvation at death, just as the potter’s wheel goes on revolving for a time after the completion of the pot. But no merit or demerit results from acts done after enlightenment (or “conversion” as we should say), because all desire for the objects of the world is at an end.

The popular beliefs about heavens and hells, gods, demi-gods, and demons, were retained in Buddhism and Jainism, as well as in the orthodox systems. But these higher and more fortunate beings were considered to be also subject to the law of transmigration, and, unless they obtained saving knowledge, to be on a lower level than the man who had obtained such knowledge.

The monistic theory of the early Upanishads, which identified the individual soul with Brahma, aroused the opposition of the rationalistic founder of the Sānkhya system, Kapila, who, according to Buddhist legends, was pre-Buddhistic, and whose doctrines Buddha followed and elaborated. His teaching is entirely dualistic, admitting only two things, both without beginning and end, but essentially different, matter on the one hand, and an infinite plurality of individual souls on the other. An account of the nature and the mutual relation of these two, forms the main content of the system. Kapila was, indeed, the first who drew a sharp line of demarcation between the two domains of matter and soul. The saving knowledge which delivers from the misery of transmigration consists, according to the Sānkhya system, in recognising the absolute distinction between soul and matter.

The existence of a supreme god who creates and rules the universe is denied, and would be irreconcilable with the system. For according to its doctrine the unconscious matter of Nature originally contains within itself the power of evolution (in the interest of souls, which are entirely passive during the process), while karma alone determines the course of that evolution. The adherents of the system defend their atheism by maintaining that the origin of misery presents an insoluble problem to the theist, for a god who has created and rules the world could not possibly escape from the reproach of cruelty and partiality. Much stress is laid by this school in general on the absence of any cogent proof for the existence of God.

The world is maintained to be real, and that from all eternity; for the existent can only be produced from the existent. The reality of an object is regarded as resulting simply from perception, always supposing the senses of the perceiver to be sound. The world is described as developing according to certain laws out of primitive matter (prakṛiti or pradhāna). The genuine philosophic spirit of its method of rising from the known elements of experience to the unknown by logical demonstration till the ultimate cause is reached, must give this system a special interest in the eyes of evolutionists whose views are founded on the results of modern physical science.

The evolution and diversity of the world are explained by primæval matter, although uniform and indivisible, consisting of three different substances called guṇas or constituents (originally “strands” of a rope). By the combination of these in varying proportions the diverse material products were supposed to have arisen. The constituent, called sattva, distinguished by the qualities of luminousness and lightness in the object, and by virtue, benevolence, and other pleasing attributes in the subject, is associated with the feeling of joy; rajas, distinguished by activity and various hurtful qualities, is associated with pain; and tamas, distinguished by heaviness, rigidity, and darkness on the one hand, and fear, unconsciousness, and so forth, on the other, is associated with apathy. At the end of a cosmic period all things are supposed to be dissolved into primitive matter, the alternations of evolution, existence, and dissolution having neither beginning nor end.

The psychology of the Sānkhya system is specially important. Peculiarly interesting is its doctrine that all mental operations, such as perception, thinking, willing, are not performed by the soul, but are merely mechanical processes of the internal organs, that is to say, of matter. The soul itself possesses no attributes or qualities, and can only be described negatively. There being no qualitative difference between souls, the principle of personality and identity is supplied by the subtile or internal body, which, chiefly formed of the inner organs and the senses, surrounds and is made conscious by the soul. This internal body, being the vehicle of merit and demerit, which are the basis of transmigration, accompanies the soul on its wanderings from one gross body to another, whether the latter be that of a god, a man, an animal, or a tree. Conscious life is bondage to pain, in which pleasure is included by this peculiarly pessimistic system. When salvation, which is the absolute cessation of pain, is obtained, the internal body is dissolved into its material elements, and the soul, becoming finally isolated, continues to exist individually, but in absolute unconsciousness.

The name of the system, which only begins to be mentioned in the later Upanishads, and more frequently in the Mahābhārata, is derived from saṃkhyā, “number.” There is, however, some doubt as to whether it originally meant “enumeration,” from the twenty-five tattvas or principles which it sets forth, or “inferential or discriminative” doctrine, from the method which it pursues.

Kapila, the founder of the system, whose teaching is presupposed by Buddhism, and whom Buddhistic legend connects with Kapila-vastu, the birthplace of Buddha, must have lived before the middle of the sixth century. No work of his, if he ever committed his system to writing, has been preserved. Indeed, the very existence of such a person as Kapila has been doubted, in spite of the unanimity with which Indian tradition designates a man of this name as the founder of the system. The second leading authority of the Sānkhya philosophy was Panchaçikha, who may have lived about the beginning of our era. The oldest systematic manual which has been preserved is the Sānkhya-kārikā of Īçvara-kṛishṇa. As it was translated into Chinese between 557 and 583 A.D., it cannot belong to a later century than the fifth, and may be still older. This work deals very concisely and methodically with the doctrines of the Sānkhya in sixty-nine stanzas (composed in the complicated Āryā metre), to which three others were subsequently added. It appears to have superseded the Sūtras of Panchaçikha, who is mentioned in it as the chief disseminator of the system. There are two excellent commentaries on the Sānkhya-kārikā, the one composed about 700 A.D. by Gauḍapāda, and the other soon after 1100 A.D. by Vāchaspati Miçra.

The Sānkhya Sūtras, long regarded as the oldest manual of the system, and attributed to Kapila, were probably not composed till about 1400 A.D. The author of this work, which also goes by the name of Sānkhya-pravachana, endeavours in vain to show that there is no difference between the doctrines of the Sānkhya and of the Upanishads. He is also much influenced by the ideas of the Yoga as well as the Vedānta system. In the oldest commentary on this work, that of Aniruddha, composed about 1500 A.D., the objectiveness of the treatment is particularly useful. Much more detailed, but far less objective, is the commentary of Vijnāna-bhikshu, entitled Sānkhya-pravachana-bhāshya, and written in the second half of the sixteenth century. The author’s point of view being theistic, he effaces the characteristic features of the different systems in the endeavour to show that all the six orthodox systems contain the absolute truth in their main doctrines.

From the beginning of our era down to recent times the Sānkhya doctrines have exercised considerable influence on the religious and philosophical life of India, though to a much less extent than the Vedānta. Some of its individual teachings, such as that of the three guṇas, have become the common property of the whole of Sanskrit literature. At the time of the great Vedāntist, Çankara (800 A.D.), the Sānkhya system was held in high honour. The law book of Manu followed this doctrine, though with an admixture of the theistic notions of the Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta systems as well as of popular mythology. The Mahābhārata, especially Book XII., is full of Sānkhya doctrines; indeed almost every detail of the teachings of this system is to be found somewhere in the great epic. Its numerous deviations from the regular Sānkhya text-books are only secondary, as Professor Garbe thinks, even though the Mahābhārata is our oldest actual source for the system. Nearly half the Purāṇas follow the cosmogony of the Sānkhya, and even those which are Vedāntic are largely influenced by its doctrines. The purity of the Sānkhya notions are, however, everywhere in the Purāṇas obscured by Vedānta doctrines, especially that of cosmical illusion. A peculiarity of the Purāṇic Sānkhya is the conception of Spirit or Purusha as the male, and Matter or Prakṛiti as the female, principle in creation.

On the Sānkhya system are based the two philosophical religions of Buddhism and Jainism in all their main outlines. Their fundamental doctrine is that life is nothing but suffering. The cause of suffering is the desire, based on ignorance, to live and enjoy the world. The aim of both is to redeem mankind from the misery of mundane existence by the annihilation of desire, with the aid of renunciation of the world and the practice of unbounded kindness towards all creatures. These two pessimistic religions are so extremely similar that the Jainas, or adherents of Jina, were long looked upon as a Buddhist sect. Research has, however, led to the discovery that the founders of both systems were contemporaries, the most eminent of the many teachers who in the sixth century opposed the Brahman ceremonial and caste pretensions in Northern Central India. Both religions, while acknowledging the lower and ephemeral gods of Brahmanism, deny, like the Sānkhya, the existence of an eternal supreme Deity. As they developed, they diverged in various respects from the system to which they owed their philosophical notions. Hence it came about that Sānkhya writers stoutly opposed some of their teachings, particularly the Buddhist denial of soul, the doctrine that all things have only a momentary existence, and that salvation is an annihilation of self. Here, however, it should be noted that Buddha himself refused to decide the question whether nirvāṇa is complete extinction or an unending state of unconscious bliss. The latter view was doubtless a concession to the Vedāntic conception of Brahma, in which the individual soul is merged on attaining salvation.

The importance of these systems lies not in their metaphysical speculations, which occupy but a subordinate position, but in their high development of moral principles, which are almost entirely neglected in the orthodox systems of Indian philosophy. The fate of the two religions has been strangely different. Jainism has survived as an insignificant sect in India alone; Buddhism has long since vanished from the land of its birth, but has become a world religion counting more adherents than any other faith.

The Sānkhya philosophy, with the addition of a peculiar form of mental asceticism as the most effective means of acquiring saving knowledge, appears to have assumed definite shape in a manual at an earlier period than any of the other orthodox systems. This is the Yoga philosophy founded by Patanjali and expounded in the Yoga Sūtras. The priority of this text-book is rendered highly probable by the fact that it is the only philosophical Sūtra work which contains no polemics against the others. There seems, moreover, to be no sufficient ground to doubt the correctness of the native tradition identifying the founder of the Yoga system with the grammarian Patanjali. The Yoga Sūtras therefore probably date from the second century B.C. This work also goes by the name of Sānkhya-pravachana, the same as that given to the later Sānkhya Sūtras, a sufficiently clear proof of its close connection with Kapila’s philosophy. In the Mahābhārata the two systems are actually spoken of as one and the same.

In order to make his system more acceptable, Patanjali introduced into it the doctrine of a personal god, but in so loose a way as not to affect the system as a whole. Indeed, the parts of the Sūtras dealing with the person of God are not only unconnected with the other parts of the treatise, but even contradict the foundations of the system. For the final aim of man is here represented as the absolute isolation (kaivalya) of the soul from matter, just as in the Sānkhya system, and not union with or absorption in God. Nor are the individual souls here derived from the “special soul” or God, but are like the latter without a beginning.

The really distinctive part of the system is the establishment of the views prevailing in Patanjali’s time with regard to asceticism and the mysterious powers to be acquired by its practice. Yoga, or “yoking” the mind, means mental concentration on a particular object. The belief that fasting and other penances produce supernatural powers goes back to remote prehistoric times, and still prevails among savage races. Bodily asceticism of this kind is known to the Vedas under the name of tapas. From this, with the advance of intellectual life in India, was developed the practice of mental asceticism called yoga, which must have been known and practised several centuries before Patanjali’s time. For recent investigations have shown that Buddhism started not only from the theoretical Sānkhya but from the practical Yoga doctrine; and the condition of ecstatic abstraction was from the beginning held in high esteem among the Buddhists. Patanjali only elaborated the doctrine, describing at length the means of attaining concentration and carrying it to the highest pitch. In his system the methodical practice of Yoga acquired a special importance; for, in addition to conferring supernatural powers, it here becomes the chief means of salvation. His Sūtras consist of four chapters dealing with deep meditation (samādhi), the means for obtaining it (sādhana), the miraculous powers (vibhūti) it confers, and the isolation (kaivalya) of the redeemed soul. The oldest and best commentary on this work is that of Vyāsa, dating from the seventh century A.D.

Many of the later Upanishads are largely concerned with the Yoga doctrine. The lawbook of Manu in Book VI. refers to various details of Yoga practice. Indeed, it seems likely, owing to the theistic point of view of that work, that its Sānkhya notions were derived from the Yoga system. The Mahābhārata treats of Yoga in considerable detail, especially in Book XII. It is particularly prominent in the Bhagavadgītā, which is even designated a yoga-çāstra. Belief in the efficacy of Yoga still prevails in India, and its practice survives. But its adherents, the Yogīs, are at the present day often nothing more than conjurers and jugglers.

The exercises of mental concentration are in the later commentaries distinguished by the name of rāja-yoga or “chief Yoga.” The external expedients are called kriyā-yoga, or “practical Yoga.” The more intense form of the latter, in later works called haṭha-yoga, or “forcible Yoga,” and dealing for the most part with suppression of the breath, is very often contrasted with rāja-yoga.

Among the eight branches of Yoga practice the sitting posture (āsana), as not only conducive to concentration, but of therapeutic value, is considered important. In describing its various forms later writers positively revelled, eighty-four being frequently stated to be their normal number. In the haṭha-yoga there are also a number of other postures and contortions of the limbs designated mudrā. The best-known mudrā, called khecharī, consists in turning the tongue back towards the throat and keeping the gaze fixed on a point between the eyebrows. Such practices, in conjunction with the suppression of breath, were capable of producing a condition of trance. There is at least the one well-authenticated case of a Yogī named Haridās who in the thirties wandered about in Rājputāna and Lahore, allowing himself to be buried for money when in the cataleptic condition. The burial of the Master of Ballantrae by the Indian Secundra Dass in Stevenson’s novel was doubtless suggested by an account of this ascetic.

In contrast with the two older and intimately connected dualistic schools of the Sānkhya and Yoga, there arose about the beginning of our era the only two, even of the six orthodox systems of philosophy, which were theistic from the outset. One of them, being based on the Vedas and the Brāhmaṇas, is concerned with the practical side of Vedic religion; while the other, alone among the philosophical systems, represents a methodical development of the fundamental non-dualistic speculations of the Upanishads. The former, which has only been accounted a philosophical system at all because of its close connection with the latter, is the Pūrva-mīmāṃsā or “First Inquiry,” also called Karma-mīmāṃsā or “Inquiry concerning Works,” but usually simply Mīmāṃsā. Founded by Jaimini, and set forth in the Karma-mīmāṃsā Sūtras, this system discusses the sacred ceremonies and the rewards resulting from their performance. Holding the Veda to be uncreated and existent from all eternity, it lays special stress on the proposition that articulate sounds are eternal, and on the consequent doctrine that the connection of a word with its sense is not due to convention, but is by nature inherent in the word itself. Owing to its lack of philosophical interest, this system has not as yet much occupied the attention of European scholars.

The oldest commentary in existence on the Mīmāṃsā Sūtras is the bhāshya of Çabara Svāmin, which in its turn was commented on about 700 A.D. by the great Mīmāṃsist Kumārila in his Tantra-vārttika and in his Çloka-vārttika, the latter a metrical paraphrase of Çabara’s exposition of the first aphorism of Patanjali. Among the later commentaries on the Mīmāṃsā Sūtras the most important is the Jaiminīya-nyāya-mālā-vistara of Mādhava (fourteenth century).

Far more deserving of attention is the theoretical system of the Uttara-Mīmāṃsā, or “Second Inquiry.” For it not only systematises the doctrines of the Upanishads—therefore usually termed Vedānta, or “End of the Veda”—but also represents the philosophical views of the Indian thinkers of to-day. In the words of Professor Deussen, its relation to the earlier Upanishads resembles that of Christian dogmatics to the New Testament. Its fundamental doctrine, expressed in the famous formula tat tvam asi, “thou art that,” is the identity of the individual soul with God (brahma). Hence it is also called the Brahma- or Çārīraka-mīmāṃsā, “Inquiry concerning Brahma or the embodied soul.” The eternal and infinite Brahma not being made up of parts or liable to change, the individual soul, it is here laid down, cannot be a part or emanation of it, but is the whole indivisible Brahma. As there is no other existence but Brahma, the Vedānta is styled the advaita-vāda, or “doctrine of non-duality,” being, in other words, an idealistic monism. The evidence of experience, which shows a multiplicity of phenomena, and the statements of the Veda, which teach a multiplicity of souls, are brushed aside as the phantasms of a dream which are only true till waking takes place.

The ultimate cause of all such false impressions is avidyā or innate ignorance, which this, like the other systems, simply postulates, but does not in any way seek to account for. It is this ignorance which prevents the soul from recognising that the empirical world is mere māyā or illusion. Thus to the Vedāntist the universe is like a mirage, which the soul under the influence of desire (tṛishṇā or “thirst”) fancies it perceives, just as the panting hart sees before it sheets of water in the fata morgana (picturesquely called mṛiga-tṛishṇā or “deer-thirst” in Sanskrit). The illusion vanishes as if by magic, when the scales fall from the eyes, on the acquisition of true knowledge. Then the semblance of any distinction between the soul and God disappears, and salvation (moksha), the chief end of man, is attained.

Saving knowledge cannot of course be acquired by worldly experience, but is revealed in the theoretical part (jnāna-kāṇḍa) of the Vedas, that is to say, in the Upanishads. By this correct knowledge the illusion of the multiplicity of phenomena is dispelled, just as the illusion of a snake when there is only a rope. Two forms of knowledge are, however, distinguished in the Vedānta, a higher (parā) and a lower (aparā). The former is concerned with the higher and impersonal Brahma (neuter), which is without form or attributes, while the latter deals with the lower and personal Brahmā (masculine), who is the soul of the universe, the Lord (īçvara) who has created the world and grants salvation. The contradiction resulting from one and the same thing having form and no form, attributes and no attributes, is solved by the explanation that the lower Brahmā has no reality, but is merely an illusory form of the higher and only Brahma, produced by ignorance.

The doctrines of the Vedānta are laid down in the Brahma-sūtras of Bādarāyaṇa. This text-book, the meaning of which is not intelligible without the aid of a commentary, was expounded in his bhāshya by the famous Vedāntist philosopher Çankara, whose name is intimately connected with the revival of Brahmanism. He was born in 788 A.D., became an ascetic in 820, and probably lived to an advanced age. There is every likelihood that his expositions agree in all essentials with the meaning of the Brahma-sūtras, The full elaboration of the doctrine of Māyā, or cosmic illusion, is, however, due to him. An excellent epitome of the teachings of the Vedānta, as set forth by Çankara, is the Vedānta-sāra of Sadānanda Yogīndra. Its author departs from Çankara’s views only in a few particulars, which show an admixture of Sānkhya doctrine.

Among the many commentaries on the Brahma-sūtras subsequent to Çankara, the most important is that of Rāmānuja, who lived in the earlier half of the twelfth century. This writer gives expression to the views of the Pāncharātras or Bhāgavatas, an old Vishnuite sect, whose doctrine, closely allied to Christian ideas, is expounded in the Bhagavadgītā and the Bhāgavata-purāṇa, as well as in the special text-books of the sect. The tenets of the Bhāgavatas, as set forth by Rāmānuja, diverge considerably from those of the Brahma-sūtras on which he is commenting. For, according to him, individual souls are not identical with God; they suffer from innate unbelief, not ignorance, while belief or the love of God (bhakti), not knowledge, is the means of salvation or union with God.

The last two orthodox systems of philosophy, the Vaiçeshika and the Nyāya, form a closely-connected pair, since a strict classification of ideas, as well as the explanation of the origin of the world from atoms, is common to both. Much the older of the two is the Vaiçeshika, which is already assailed in the Brahma-sūtras. It is there described as undeserving of attention, because it had no adherents. This was certainly not the case in later times, when this system became very popular. It received its name from the category of “particularity” (viçesha) on which great stress is laid in its theory of atoms. The memory of its founder is only preserved in his nickname Kaṇāda (also Kaṇabhuj or Kaṇa-bhaksha), which means “atom-eater.”

The main importance of the system lies in the logical categories which it set up and under which it classed all phenomena. The six which it originally set up are substance, quality, motion, generality, particularity, and inherence. They are rigorously defined and further subdivided. The most interesting is that of inherence or inseparable connection (samavāya), which, being clearly distinguished from that of accident or separable connection (saṃyoga), is described as the relation between a thing and its properties, the whole and its parts, genus and species, motion and the object in motion. Later was added a seventh, that of non-existence (abhāva), which, by affording special facilities for the display of subtlety, has had a momentous influence on Indian logic. This category was further subdivided into prior and posterior non-existence (which we should respectively call future and past existence), mutual non-existence (as between a jar and cloth), and absolute non-existence (as fire in water).

Though largely concerned with these categories, the Vaiçeshika system aimed at attaining a comprehensive philosophic view in connection with them. Thus while dealing with the category of “substance,” it develops its theory of the origin of the world from atoms. The consideration of the category of “quality” similarly leads to its treatment of psychology, which is remarkable and has analogies with that of the Sānkhya. Soul is here regarded as without beginning or end, and all-pervading, subject to the limitations of neither time nor space. Intimately connected with soul is “mind” (manas), the internal organ of thought, which alone enables the soul to know not only external objects but its own qualities. As this organ is, in contrast with soul, an atom, it can only comprehend a single object at any given moment. This is the explanation why the soul cannot be conscious of all objects simultaneously.

The Nyāya system is only a development and complement of that of Kaṇāda, its metaphysics and psychology being the same. Its specific character consists in its being a very detailed and acute exposition of formal logic. As such it has remained the foundation of philosophical studies in India down to the present day. Besides dealing fully with the means of knowledge, which it states to be perception, inference, analogy, and trustworthy evidence, it treats exhaustively of syllogisms and fallacies. It is interesting to note that the Indian mind here independently arrived at an exposition of the syllogism as the form of deductive reasoning. The text-book of this system is the Nyāya-sūtra of Gotama. The importance here attached to logic appears from the very first aphorism, which enumerates sixteen logical notions with the remark that salvation depends on a correct knowledge of their nature.

Neither the Vaiçeshika nor the Nyāya-sūtras originally accepted the existence of God; and though both schools later became theistic, they never went so far as to assume a creator of matter. Their theology is first found developed in Udayanāchārya’s Kusumānjali, which was written about 1200 A.D., and in works which deal with the two systems conjointly. Here God is regarded as a “special” soul, which differs from all other individual eternal souls by exemption from all qualities connected with transmigration, and by the possession of the power and knowledge qualifying him to be a regulator of the universe.

Of the eclectic movement combining Sānkhya, Yoga, and Vedānta doctrines, the oldest literary representative is the Çvetāçvatara Upanishad. More famous is the Bhagavadgītā in which the Supreme Being incarnate as Kṛishṇa expounds to Arjuna his doctrines in this sense. The burden of his teaching is that the zealous performance of his duty is a man’s most important task, to whatever caste he may belong. The beauty and the power of the language in which this doctrine is inculcated, is unsurpassed in any other work of Indian literature.

By the side of the orthodox systems and the two non-Brahmanical religions, flourished the lokāyata (“directed to the world of sense”), or materialistic school, usually called that of the Chārvākas from the name of the founder of the doctrine. It was regarded as peculiarly heretical, for it not only rejected the authority of the Vedas and Brahmanic ceremonial, but denied the doctrines of transmigration and salvation accepted by all other systems. Materialistic teachings may be traced even before the time of Buddha, and they have had many secret followers in India down to the present day. The system, however, seems never to have had more than one text-book, the lost Sūtras of Bṛihaspati, its mythical founder. Our knowledge of it is derived partly from the polemics of other schools, but especially from the Sarvadarçana-saṃgraha, or “Compendium of all the Philosophical Systems,” composed in the fourteenth century by the well-known Vedāntist Mādhavāchārya, brother of Sāyaṇa. The strong scepticism of the Chārvākas showed itself in the rejection of all the means of knowledge accepted by other schools, excepting perception. To them matter was the only reality. Soul they regarded as nothing but the body with the attribute of intelligence. They held it to be created when the body is formed by the combination of elements, just as the power of intoxication arises from the mixture of certain ingredients. Hence with the annihilation of the body the soul also is annihilated. Not transmigration, they affirm, but the true nature of things, is the cause from which phenomena proceed. The existence of all that transcends the senses they deny, sometimes with an admixture of irony. Thus the highest being, they say, is the king of the land, whose existence is proved by the perception of the whole world; hell is earthly pain produced by earthly causes; and salvation is the dissolution of the body. Even in the attribution of their text-book to Bṛihaspati, the name of the preceptor of the gods, a touch of irony is to be detected. The religion of the Brahmans receives a severe handling. The Vedas, say the Chārvākas, are only the incoherent rhapsodies of knaves, and are tainted with the three blemishes of falsehood, self-contradiction, and tautology; Vedic teachers are impostors, whose doctrines are mutually destructive; and the ritual of the Brahmans is useful only as a means of livelihood. “If,” they ask, “an animal sacrificed reaches heaven, why does the sacrificer not rather offer his own father?”

On the moral side the system is pure hedonism. For the only end of man is here stated to be sensual pleasure, which is to be enjoyed by neglecting as far as possible the pains connected with it, just as a man who desires fish takes the scales and bones into the bargain. “While life remains, let a man live happily, let him feed on ghee even though he run into debt; when once the body becomes ashes, how can it ever return again?”

The author of the Sarvadarçana-saṃgraha, placing himself with remarkable mental detachment in the position of an adherent in each case, describes altogether sixteen systems. The six which have not been sketched above, besides being of little importance, are not purely philosophic. Five of these are sectarian, one Vishnuite and four Çivite, all of them being strongly tinctured with Sānkhya and Vedānta doctrines. The sixth, the system of Pāṇini, is classed by Mādhava among the philosophies, simply because the Indian grammarians accepted the Mīmāṃsā dogma of the eternity of sound, and philosophically developed the Yoga theory of the sphuṭa, or the imperceptible and eternal element inherent in every word as the vehicle of its sense.

Chapter XVI

Sanskrit Literature and the West

Want of space makes it impossible for me to give even the briefest account of the numerous and, in many cases, important legal and scientific works written in Sanskrit. But I cannot conclude this survey of Sanskrit literature as an embodiment of Indian culture without sketching rapidly the influence which it has received from and exercised upon the nations of the West. An adequate treatment of this highly interesting theme could only be presented in a special volume.

The oldest trace of contact between the Indians and the peoples of the West is to be found in the history of Indian writing, which, as we have already seen (p. 16) was derived from a Semitic source, probably as early as 800 B.C.

The Aryans having conquered Hindustan in prehistoric times, began themselves to fall under foreign domination from an early period. The extreme north-west became subject to Persian sway from about 500 to 331 B.C. under the Achæmenid dynasty. Cyrus the First made tributary the Indian tribes of the Gandhāras and Açvakas. The old Persian inscriptions of Behistun and Persepolis show that his successor, Darius Hystaspis, ruled over not only the Gandharians, but also the people of the Indus. Herodotus also states that this monarch had subjected the “Northern Indians.” At the command of the same Darius, a Greek named Skylax is said to have travelled in India, and to have navigated the Indus in 509 B.C. From his account various Greek writers, among them Herodotus, derived their information about India. In the army which Xerxes led against Greece in 480 B.C. there were divisions of Gandharians and Indians, whose dress and equipment are described by Herodotus. That historian also makes the statement that the satrapy of India furnished the heaviest tribute in the Persian empire, adding that the gold with which it was paid was brought from a desert in the east, where it was dug up by ants larger than foxes.

At the beginning of the fourth century B.C., the Greek physician Ktesias, who resided at the court of Artaxerxes II., learnt much from the Persians about India, and was personally acquainted with wise Indians. Little useful information can, however, be derived from the account of India which he wrote after his return in 398 B.C., as it has been very imperfectly preserved, and his reputation for veracity did not stand high among his countrymen.

The destruction of the Persian empire by Alexander the Great led to a new invasion of India, which fixes the first absolutely certain date in Indian history. In 327 B.C. Alexander passed over the Hindu Kush with an army of 120,000 infantry and 30,000 cavalry. After taking the town of Pushkalavatī (the Greek Peukelaotis) at the confluence of the Kabul and Indus, and subduing the Açvakas (variously called Assakanoi, Aspasioi, Hippasioi, by Greek writers) on the north and the Gandhāras on the south of the Kabul River, he crossed the Indus early in 326. At Takshaçilā (Greek Taxiles), between the Indus and the Jhelum (Hydaspes), the Greeks for the first time saw Brahman Yogīs, or “the wise men of the Indians,” as they called them, and were astonished at their asceticism and strange doctrines.

Between the Jhelum and the Chenab (Akesines) lay the kingdom of the Pauravas or Pauras, whose prince, called Porus by the Greeks from the name of his people, led out an army of 50,000 infantry, 4000 cavalry, 200 elephants, and 400 chariots to check the advance of the invader. Then on the banks of the Jhelum was fought the great historic battle, in which Alexander, after a severe struggle, finally won the day by superior numbers and force of genius. He continued his victorious march eastwards till he reached the Sutlej (Greek Zadadres). But here his further progress towards the Ganges was arrested by the opposition of his Macedonians, intimidated by the accounts they heard of the great power of the king of the Prasioi (Sanskrit Prāchyas, or “Easterns”). Hence, after appointing satraps of the Panjāb and of Sindh, he sailed down to the mouths of the Indus and returned to Persia by Gedrosia. Of the writings of those who accompanied Alexander, nothing has been preserved except statements from them in later authors.

After Alexander’s death the assassination of the old king Porus by Eudemus, the satrap of the Panjāb, led to a rebellion in which the Indians cast off the Greek yoke under the leadership of a young adventurer named Chandragupta (the Sandrakottos or Sandrokyptos of the Greeks). Having gained possession of the Indus territory in 317, and dethroned the king of Pāṭaliputra in 315 B.C., he became master of the whole Ganges Valley as well. The Maurya dynasty, which he thus founded, lasted for 137 years (315–178 B.C.). His empire was the largest hitherto known in India, as it embraced the whole territory between the Himālaya and the Vindhya from the mouths of the Ganges to the Indus, including Gujarat.

Seleucus, who had founded a kingdom in Media and Persia, feeling himself unable to vanquish Chandragupta, sent a Greek named Megasthenes to reside at his court at Pāṭaliputra. This ambassador thus lived for several years in the heart of India between 311 and 302 B.C., and wrote a work entitled Ta Indika, which is particularly valuable as the earliest direct record of his visit by a foreigner who knew the country himself. Megasthenes furnishes particulars about the strength of Chandragupta’s army and the administration of the state. He mentions forest ascetics (Hylobioi), and distinguishes Brachmānes and Sarmanai as two classes of philosophers, meaning, doubtless, Brahmans and Buddhists (çramaṇas). He tells us that the Indians worshipped the rain-bringing Zeus (Indra) as well as the Ganges, which must, therefore, have already been a sacred river. By his description of the god Dionysus, whom they worshipped in the mountains, Çiva must be intended, and by Herakles, adored in the plains, especially among the Çūrasenas on the Yamunā and in the city of Methora, no other can be meant than Vishṇu and his incarnation Kṛishṇa, the chief city of whose tribe of Yādavas was Mathurā (Muttra). These statements seem to justify the conclusion that Çiva and Vishṇu were already prominent as highest gods, the former in the mountains, the latter in the Ganges Valley. Kṛishṇa would also seem to have been regarded as an Avatār of Vishṇu, though it is to be noted that Kṛishṇa is not yet mentioned in the old Buddhist Sūtras. We also learn from Megasthenes that the doctrine of the four ages of the world (yugas) was fully developed in India by his time.

Chandragupta’s grandson, the famous Açoka, not only maintained his national Indian empire, but extended it in every direction. Having adopted Buddhism as the state religion, he did much to spread its doctrines, especially to Ceylon, which since then has remained the most faithful guardian of Buddhist tradition.

After Açoka’s death the Græco-Bactrian princes began about 200 B.C. to conquer Western India, and ruled there for about eighty years. Euthydemos extended his dominions to the Jhelum. His son Demetrios (early in the second century B.C.) appears to have held sway over the Lower Indus, Mālava, Gujarat, and probably also Kashmir. He is called “King of the Indians,” and was the first to introduce a bilingual coinage by adding an Indian inscription in Kharoshṭhī characters on the reverse to the Greek on the obverse. Eukratides (190–160 B.C.), who rebelled against Demetrios, subjected the Panjāb as far east as the Beäs. After the reign of Heliokles (160–120 B.C.), the Greek princes in India ceased to be connected with Bactria. The most prominent among these Græco-Indians was Menander (c. 150 B.C.), who, under the name of Milinda, is well known in Buddhist writings. The last vestige of Greek domination in India disappeared about 20 B.C., having lasted nearly two centuries. It is a remarkable fact that no Greek monumental inscriptions have ever been found in India.

With the beginning of the Græco-Indian period also commenced the incursions of the Scythic tribes, who are called Indo-Scythians by the Greeks, and by the Indians Çakas, the Persian designation of Scythians in general. Of these so-called Scythians the Jāts of the Panjāb are supposed to be the descendants. The rule of these Çaka kings, the earliest of whom is Maues or Moa (c. 120 B.C.), endured down to 178 A.D., or about three centuries. Their memory is preserved in India by the Çaka era, which is still in use, and dates from 78 A.D., the inaugural year of Kanishka, the only famous king of this race. His dominions, which included Kānyakubja (Kanauj) on the Ganges, extended beyond the confines of India to parts of Central Asia. A zealous adherent of Buddhism, he made Gandhāra and Kashmir the chief seat of that religion, and held the fourth Buddhist council in the latter country.

About 20 B.C. the Çakas were followed into India by the Kushanas, who were one of the five tribes of the Yueh-chi from Central Asia, and who subsequently conquered the whole of Northern India.

After having been again united into a single empire almost as great as that of Chandragupta under the national dynasty of the Guptas, from 319 to 480 A.D., Northern India, partly owing to the attacks of the Hūṇas, was split up into several kingdoms, some under the later Guptas, till 606 A.D., when Harshavardhana of Kanauj gained paramount power over the whole of Northern India. During his reign the poet Bāṇa flourished, and the celebrated Chinese pilgrim Hiouen Thsang visited India.

With the Muhammadan conquest about 1000 A.D. the country again fell under a foreign yoke. As after Alexander’s invasion, we have the good fortune to possess in Albērūnī’s India (c. 1030 A.D.) the valuable work of a cultivated foreigner, giving a detailed account of the civilisation of India at this new era in its history.

This repeated contact of the Indians with foreign invaders from the West naturally led to mutual influences in various branches of literature.

With regard to the Epics, we find the statement of the Greek rhetorician Dio Chrysostomos (50–117 A.D.) that the Indians sang in their own language the poetry of Homer, the sorrows of Priam, the laments of Andromache and Hecuba, the valour of Achilles and Hector. The similarity of some of the leading characters of the Mahābhārata, to which the Greek writer evidently alludes, caused him to suppose that the Indian epic was a translation of the Iliad. There is, however, no connection of any kind between the two poems. Nor does Professor Weber’s assumption of Greek influence on the Rāmāyaṇa appear to have any sufficient basis (p. 307).

The view has been held that the worship of Kṛishṇa, who, as we have seen, plays an important part in the Mahābhārata, arose under the influence of Christianity, with which it certainly has some rather striking points of resemblance. This theory is, however, rendered improbable, at least as far as the origin of the cult of Kṛishṇa is concerned, by the conclusions at which we have arrived regarding the age of the Mahābhārata (pp. 286–287), as well as by the statements of Megasthenes, which indicate that Kṛishṇa was deified and worshipped some centuries before the beginning of our era. We know, moreover, from the Mahābhāshya that the story of Kṛishṇa was the subject of dramatic representations in the second or, at latest, the first century before the birth of Christ.

It is an interesting question whether the Indian drama has any genetic connection with that of Greece. It must be admitted that opportunities for such a connection may have existed during the first three centuries preceding our era. On his expedition to India, Alexander was accompanied by numerous artists, among whom there may have been actors. Seleucus gave his daughter in marriage to Chandragupta, and both that ruler and Ptolemy II. maintained relations with the court of Pāṭaliputra by means of ambassadors. Greek dynasties ruled in Western India for nearly two centuries. Alexandria was connected by a lively commerce with the town called by the Greeks Barygaza (now Broach), at the mouth of the Narmadā (Nerbudda) in Gujarat; with the latter town was united by a trade route the city of Ujjayinī (Greek Ozēnē), which in consequence reached a high pitch of prosperity. Philostratus (second century A.D.), not it is true a very trustworthy authority, states in his Life of Apollonius of Tyana, who visited India about 50 A.D., that Greek literature was held in high esteem by the Brahmans. Indian inscriptions mention Yavana or Greek girls sent to India as tribute, and Sanskrit authors, especially Kālidāsa, describe Indian princes as waited on by them. Professor Weber has even conjectured that the Indian god of love, Kāma, bears a dolphin (makara) in his banner, like the Greek Erōs, through the influence of Greek courtesans.

The existence of such conditions has induced Professor Weber to believe that the representations of Greek plays, which must have taken place at the courts of Greek princes in Bactria, in the Panjāb, and in Gujarat, suggested the drama to the Indians as a subject for imitation. This theory is supported by the fact that the curtain of the Indian stage is called yavanikā or the “Greek partition.” Weber at the same time admits that there is no internal connection between the Indian and the Greek drama.

Professor Windisch, however, went further, and maintained such internal connection. It was, indeed, impossible for him to point out any affinity to the Greek tragedy, but he thought he could trace in the Mṛicchakaṭikā the influence of the new Attic comedy, which reached its zenith with Menander about 300 B.C. The points in which that play resembles this later Greek comedy are fewer and slighter in other Sanskrit dramas, and can easily be explained as independently developed in India. The improbability of the theory is emphasised by the still greater affinity of the Indian drama to that of Shakespeare. It is doubtful whether Greek plays were ever actually performed in India; at any rate, no references to such performances have been preserved. The earliest Sanskrit plays extant are, moreover, separated from the Greek period by at least four hundred years. The Indian drama has had a thoroughly national development, and even its origin, though obscure, easily admits of an indigenous explanation. The name of the curtain, yavanikā, may, indeed, be a reminiscence of Greek plays actually seen in India; but it is uncertain whether the Greek theatre had a curtain at all; in any case, it did not form the background of the stage.

It is a fact worth noting, that the beginning of one of the most famous of modern European dramas has been modelled on that of a celebrated Sanskrit play. The prelude of Çakuntalā suggested to Goethe the plan of the prologue on the stage in Faust, where the stage-manager, the merryandrew, and the poet converse regarding the play about to be performed (cf. p. 351). Forster’s German translation of Kālidāsa’s masterpiece appeared in 1791, and the profound impression it produced on Goethe is proved by the well-known epigram he composed on Çakuntalā in the same year. The impression was a lasting one; for the theatre prologue of Faust was not written till 1797, and as late as 1830 the poet thought of adapting the Indian play for the Weimar stage.

If in epic and dramatic poetry hardly any definite influences can be traced between India and the West, how different is the case in the domain of fables and fairy tales! The story of the migration of these from India certainly forms the most romantic chapter in the literary history of the world.

We know that in the sixth century A.D. there existed in India a Buddhist collection of fables, in which animals play the part of human beings (cf. p. 369). By the command of the Sassanian king, Khosru Anūshīrvān (531–579), this work was translated by a Persian physician named Barzoi into Pehlevī. Both this version and the unmodified original have been lost, but two early and notable translations from the Pehlevī have been preserved. The Syriac one was made about 570 A.D., and called Kalīlag and Damnag. A manuscript of it was found by chance in 1870, and, becoming known to scholars by a wonderful chapter of lucky accidents, was published in 1876. The Arabic translation from the Pehlevī, entitled Kalīlah and Dimnah, or “Fables of Pilpay,” was made in the eighth century by a Persian convert to Islam, who died about 760 A.D. In this translation a wicked king is represented to be reclaimed to virtue by a Brahman philosopher named Bidbah, a word which has been satisfactorily traced through Pehlevī to the Sanskrit vidyāpati, “master of sciences,” “chief scholar.” From this bidbah is derived the modern Bidpai or Pilpay, which is thus not a proper name at all.

This Arabic version is of great importance, as the source of other versions which exercised very great influence in shaping the literature of the Middle Ages in Europe. These versions of it were the later Syriac (c. 1000 A.D.), the Greek (1180), the Persian (c. 1130), recast later (c. 1494) under the title of Anvār-i-Suhailī, or “Lights of Canopus,” the old Spanish (1251), and the Hebrew one made about 1250.

The fourth stratum of translation is represented by John of Capua’s rendering of the Hebrew version into Latin (c. 1270), entitled Directorium Humanæ Vitæ which was printed about 1480.

From John of Capua’s work was made, at the instance of Duke Eberhardt of Würtemberg, the famous German version, Das Buch der Byspel der alten Wysen, or “Book of Apologues of the Ancient Sages,” first printed about 1481. The fact that four dated editions appeared at Ulm between 1483 and 1485, and thirteen more down to 1592, is a sufficiently eloquent proof of the importance of this work as a means of instruction and amusement during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The Directorium was also the source of the Italian version, printed at Venice in 1552, from which came the English translation of Sir Thomas North (1570). The latter was thus separated from the Indian original by five intervening translations and a thousand years of time.

It is interesting to note the changes which tales undergo in the course of such wanderings. In the second edition of his Fables (1678), La Fontaine acknowledges his indebtedness for a large part of his work to the Indian sage Pilpay. A well-known story in the French writer is that of the milkmaid, who, while carrying a pail of milk on her head to market, and building all kinds of castles in the air with the future proceeds of the sale of the milk, suddenly gives a jump of joy at the prospect of her approaching fortune, and thereby shatters the pail to pieces on the ground. This is only a transformation of a story still preserved in the Panchatantra. Here it is a Brahman who, having filled an alms-bowl with the remnants of some rice-pap he has begged, hangs it up on a nail in the wall above his bed. He dreams of the money he will procure by selling the rice when a famine breaks out. Then he will gradually acquire cattle, buy a fine house, and marry a beautiful girl with a rich dowry. One day when he calls to his wife to take away his son who is playing about, and she does not hear, he will rise up to give her a kick. As this thought passes through his mind, his foot shatters the alms-bowl, the contents of which are spilt all over him.

Another Panchatantra story recurring in La Fontaine is that of the too avaricious jackal. Finding the dead bodies of a boar and a hunter, besides the bow of the latter, he resolves on devouring the bowstring first. As soon as he begins to gnaw, the bow starts asunder, pierces his head, and kills him. In La Fontaine the jackal has become a wolf, and the latter is killed by the arrow shot off as he touches the bow.

Nothing, perhaps, in the history of the migration of Indian tales is more remarkable than the story of Barlaam and Josaphat. At the court of Khalif Almansur (753–774), under whom Kalīlah and Dimnah was translated into Arabic, there lived a Christian known as John of Damascus, who wrote in Greek the story of Barlaam and Josaphat as a manual of Christian theology. This became one of the most popular books of the Middle Ages, being translated into many Oriental as well as European languages. It is enlivened by a number of fables and parables, most of which have been traced to Indian sources. The very hero of the story, Prince Josaphat, has an Indian origin, being, in fact, no other than Buddha. The name has been shown to be a corruption of Bodhisattva, a well-known designation of the Indian reformer. Josaphat rose to the rank of a saint both in the Greek and the Roman Church, his day in the former being August 26, in the latter November 27. That the founder of an atheistic Oriental religion should have developed into a Christian saint is one of the most astounding facts in religious history.

Though Europe was thus undoubtedly indebted to India for its mediæval literature of fairy tales and fables, the Indian claim to priority of origin in ancient times is somewhat dubious. A certain number of apologues found in the collections of Æsop and Babrius are distinctly related to Indian fables. The Indian claim is supported by the argument that the relation of the jackal to the lion is a natural one in the Indian fable, while the connection of the fox and the lion in Greece has no basis in fact. On the other side it has been urged that animals and birds which are peculiar to India play but a minor part in Indian fables, while there exists a Greek representation of the Æsopian fable of the fox and the raven, dating from the sixth century B.C. Weber and Benfey both conclude that the Indians borrowed a few fables from the Greeks, admitting at the same time that the Indians had independent fables of their own before. Rudimentary fables are found even in the Chhāndogya Upanishad, and the transmigration theory would have favoured the development of this form of tale; indeed Buddha himself in the old Jātaka stories appears in the form of various animals.

Contemporaneously with the fable literature, the most intellectual game the world has known began its westward migration from India. Chess in Sanskrit is called chatur-anga, or the “four-limbed army,” because it represents a kriegspiel, in which two armies, consisting of infantry, cavalry, chariots, and elephants, each led by a king and his councillor, are opposed. The earliest direct mention of the game in Sanskrit literature is found in the works of Bāṇa, and the Kāvyālaṃkāra of Rudraṭa, a Kashmirian poet of the ninth century, contains a metrical puzzle illustrating the moves of the chariot, the elephant, and the horse. Introduced into Persia in the sixth century, chess was brought by the Arabs to Europe, where it was generally known by 1100 A.D. It has left its mark on mediæval poetry, on the idioms of European languages (e.g. “check,” from the Persian shah, “king”), on the science of arithmetic in the calculation of progressions with the chessboard, and even in heraldry, where the “rook” often figures in coats of arms. Beside the fable literature of India, this Indian game served to while away the tedious life of myriads during the Middle Ages in Europe.

Turning to Philosophical Literature, we find that the early Greek and Indian philosophers have many points in common. Some of the leading doctrines of the Eleatics, that God and the universe are one, that everything existing in multiplicity has no reality, that thinking and being are identical, are all to be found in the philosophy of the Upanishads and the Vedānta system, which is its outcome. Again, the doctrine of Empedocles, that nothing can arise which has not existed before, and that nothing existing can be annihilated, has its exact parallel in the characteristic doctrine of the Sānkhya system about the eternity and indestructibility of matter. According to Greek tradition, Thales, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Democritus, and others undertook journeys to Oriental countries in order to study philosophy. Hence there is at least the historical possibility of the Greeks having been influenced by Indian thought through Persia.

Whatever may be the truth in the cases just mentioned, the dependence of Pythagoras on Indian philosophy and science certainly seems to have a high degree of probability. Almost all the doctrines ascribed to him, religious, philosophical, mathematical, were known in India in the sixth century B.C. The coincidences are so numerous that their cumulative force becomes considerable. The transmigration theory, the assumption of five elements, the Pythagorean theorem in geometry, the prohibition as to eating beans, the religio-philosophical character of the Pythagorean fraternity, and the mystical speculations of the Pythagorean school, all have their close parallels in ancient India. The doctrine of metempsychosis in the case of Pythagoras appears without any connection or explanatory background, and was regarded by the Greeks as of foreign origin. He could not have derived it from Egypt, as it was not known to the ancient Egyptians. In spite, however, of the later tradition, it seems impossible that Pythagoras should have made his way to India at so early a date, but he could quite well have met Indians in Persia.

Coming to later centuries, we find indications that the Neo-Platonist philosophy may have been influenced by the Sānkhya system, which flourished in the first centuries of our era, and could easily have become known at Alexandria owing to the lively intercourse between that city and India at the time. From this source Plotinus (204–269 A.D.), chief of the Neo-Platonists, may have derived his doctrine that soul is free from suffering, which belongs only to matter, his identification of soul with light, and his illustrative use of the mirror, in which the reflections of objects appear, for the purpose of explaining the phenomena of consciousness. The influence of the Yoga system on Plotinus is suggested by his requirement that man should renounce the world of sense and strive after truth by contemplation. Connection with Sānkhya ideas is still more likely in the case of Plotinus’s most eminent pupil, Porphyry (232–304 A.D.), who lays particular stress on the difference between soul and matter, on the omnipresence of soul when freed from the bonds of matter, and on the doctrine that the world has no beginning. It is also noteworthy that he rejects sacrifice and prohibits the killing of animals.

The influence of Indian philosophy on Christian Gnosticism in the second and third centuries seems at any rate undoubted. The Gnostic doctrine of the opposition between soul and matter, of the personal existence of intellect, will, and so forth, the identification of soul and light, are derived from the Sānkhya system. The division, peculiar to several Gnostics, of men into the three classes of pneumatikoi, psychikoi, and hylikoi, is also based on the Sānkhya doctrine of the three guṇas. Again, Bardesanes, a Gnostic of the Syrian school, who obtained information about India from Indian philosophers, assumed the existence of a subtle ethereal body which is identical with the linga-çarīra of the Sānkhya system. Finally, the many heavens of the Gnostics are evidently derived from the fantastic cosmogony of later Buddhism.

With regard to the present century, the influence of Indian thought on the pessimistic philosophy of Schopenhauer and Von Hartmann is well known. How great an impression the Upanishads produced on the former, even in a second-hand Latin translation, may be inferred from his writing that they were his consolation in life and would be so in death.

In Science, too, the debt of Europe to India has been considerable. There is, in the first place, the great fact that the Indians invented the numerical figures used all over the world. The influence which the decimal system of reckoning dependent on those figures has had not only on mathematics, but on the progress of civilisation in general, can hardly be over-estimated. During the eighth and ninth centuries the Indians became the teachers in arithmetic and algebra of the Arabs, and through them of the nations of the West. Thus, though we call the latter science by an Arabic name, it is a gift we owe to India.

In Geometry the points of contact between the Çulva Sūtras and the work of the Greeks are so considerable, that, according to Cantor, the historian of mathematics, borrowing must have taken place on one side or the other. In the opinion of that authority, the Çulva Sūtras were influenced by the Alexandrian geometry of Hero (215 B.C.), which, he thinks, came to India after 100 B.C. The Çulva Sūtras are, however, probably far earlier than that date, for they form an integral portion of the Çrauta Sūtras, and their geometry is a part of the Brahmanical theology, having taken its rise in India from practical motives as much as the science of grammar. The prose parts of the Yajurvedas and the Brāhmaṇas constantly speak of the arrangement of the sacrificial ground and the construction of altars according to very strict rules, the slightest deviation from which might cause the greatest disaster. It is not likely that the exclusive Brahmans should have been willing to borrow anything closely connected with their religion from foreigners.

Of Astronomy the ancient Indians had but slight independent knowledge. It is probable that they derived their early acquaintance with the twenty-eight divisions of the moon’s orbit from the Chaldeans through their commercial relations with the Phœnicians. Indian astronomy did not really begin to flourish till it was affected by that of Greece; it is indeed the one science in which undoubtedly strong Greek influence can be proved. The debt which the native astronomers always acknowledge they owe to the Yavanas is sufficiently obvious from the numerous Greek terms in Indian astronomical writings. Thus, in Varāha Mihira’s Horā-çāstra the signs of the zodiac are enumerated either by Sanskrit names translated from the Greek or by the original Greek names, as Āra for Ares, Heli for Hēlios, Jyau for Zeus. Many technical terms were directly borrowed from Greek works, as kendra for kentron, jāmitra for diametron. Some of the very names of the oldest astronomical treatises of the Indians indicate their Western origin. Thus the Romaka-siddhānta means the “Roman manual.” The title of Varāha Mihira’s Horā-çāstra contains the Greek word hōrā.

In a few respects, however, the Indians independently advanced astronomical science further than the Greeks themselves, and at a later period they in their turn influenced the West even in astronomy. For in the eighth and ninth centuries they became the teachers of the Arabs in this science also. The siddhāntas (Arabic Sind Hind), the writings of Āryabhaṭa (called Arjehīr), and the Ahargaṇa (Arkand), attributed to Brahmagupta, were translated or adapted by the Arabs, and Khalifs of Bagdad repeatedly summoned Indian astronomers to their court to supervise this work. Through the Arabs, Indian astronomy then migrated to Europe, which in this case only received back in a roundabout way what it had given long before. Thus the Sanskrit word uchcha, “apex of a planet’s orbit,” was borrowed in the form of aux (gen. aug-is) in Latin translations of Arabic astronomers.

After Bhāskara (twelfth century), Hindu astronomy, ceasing to make further progress, became once more merged in the astrology from which it had sprung. It was now the turn of the Arabs, and, by a strange inversion of things, an Arabic writer of the ninth century who had written on Indian astronomy and arithmetic, in this period became an object of study to the Hindus. The old Greek terms remained, but new Arabic ones were added as the necessity for them arose.

The question as to whether Indian Medical Science in its earlier period was affected by that of the Greeks cannot yet be answered with certainty, the two systems not having hitherto been compared with sufficient care. Recently, however, some close parallels have been discovered between the works of Hippocrates and Charaka (according to a Chinese authority, the official physician of King Kanishka), which render Greek influence before the beginning of our era likely.

On the other hand, the effect of Hindu medical science upon the Arabs after about 700 A.D. was considerable, for the Khalifs of Bagdad caused several books on the subject to be translated. The works of Charaka and Suçruta (probably not later than the fourth century A.D.) were rendered into Arabic at the close of the eighth century, and are quoted as authorities by the celebrated Arabic physician Al-Razi, who died in 932 A.D. Arabic medicine in its turn became the chief authority, down to the seventeenth century, of European physicians. By the latter Indian medical authors must have been thought highly of, for Charaka is repeatedly mentioned in the Latin translations of the Arab writers Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā), Rhazes (Al-Razi), and Serapion (Ibn Sarāfyūn). In modern days European surgery has borrowed the operation of rhinoplasty, or the formation of artificial noses, from India, where Englishmen became acquainted with the art in the last century.

We have already seen that the discovery of the Sanskrit language and literature led, in the present century, to the foundation of the two new sciences of Comparative Mythology and Comparative Philology. Through the latter it has even affected the practical school-teaching of the classical languages in Europe. The interest in Buddhism has already produced an immense literature in Europe. Some of the finest lyrics of Heine, and works like Sir Edwin Arnold’s Light of Asia, to mention only a few instances, have drawn their inspiration from Sanskrit poetry. The intellectual debt of Europe to Sanskrit literature has thus been undeniably great; it may perhaps become greater still in the years that are to come.