A History of Sanskrit Literature

by Arthur Anthony Macdonell

It might, indeed, be inferred from the greater freedom with which they handle the çloka metre that the canonical Buddhistic writings are older than the Rāmāyaṇa, in which the çloka is of the classical Sanskrit type. But, as a matter of fact, these Pāli works on the whole observe the laws of the classical çloka, their metrical irregularities being most probably caused by the recent application of Pāli to literary purposes as well as by the inferior preservation of Pāli works. On the other hand, Buddhistic literature early made use of the Āryā metre, which, though so popular in classical Sanskrit poetry, is not yet to be found in the Sanskrit epics.

The only mention of Buddha in the Rāmāyaṇa occurs in a passage which is evidently interpolated. Hence the balance of the evidence in relation to Buddhism seems to favour the pre-Buddhistic origin of the genuine Rāmāyaṇa.

The question whether the Greeks were known to the author of our epic is, of course, also of chronological moment. An examination of the poem shows that the Yavanas (Greeks) are only mentioned twice, once in Book I. and once in a canto of Book IV., which Professor Jacobi shows to be an interpolation. The only conclusion to be drawn from this is that the additions to the original poem were made some time after 300 B.C. Professor Weber’s assumption of Greek influence in the story of the Rāmāyaṇa seems to lack foundation. For the tale of the abduction of Sītā and the expedition to Lankā for her recovery has no real correspondence with that of the rape of Helen and the Trojan war. Nor is there any sufficient reason to suppose that the account of Rāma bending a powerful bow in order to win Sītā was borrowed from the adventures of Ulysses. Stories of similar feats of strength for a like object are to be found in the poetry of other nations besides the Greeks, and could easily have arisen independently.

The political aspect of Eastern India as revealed by the Rāmāyaṇa sheds some additional light on the age of the epic. In the first place, no mention is made of the city of Pāṭaliputra (Patna), which was founded by King Kālāçoka (under whom the second Buddhist council was held at Vaiçālī about 380 B.C.), and which by the time of Megasthenes (300 B.C.) had become the capital of India. Yet Rāma is in Book I. (canto 35) described as passing the very spot where that city stood, and the poet makes a point (in cantos 32–33) of referring to the foundation of a number of cities in Eastern Hindustan, such as Kauçāmbī, Kānyakubja, and Kāmpilya, in order to show how far the fame of the Rāmāyaṇa spread beyond the confines of Kosala, the land of its origin. Had Pāṭaliputra existed at the time, it could not have failed to be mentioned.

It is further a noteworthy fact that the capital of Kosala is in the original Rāmāyaṇa regularly called Ayodhyā, while the Buddhists, Jains, Greeks, and Patanjali always give it the name of Sāketa. Now in the last book of the Rāmāyaṇa we are told that Rāma’s son, Lava, fixed the seat of his government at Çrāvastī, a city not mentioned at all in the old part of the epic; and in Buddha’s time King Prasenajit of Kosala is known to have reigned at Çrāvastī. All this points to the conclusion that the original Rāmāyaṇa was composed when the ancient Ayodhyā had not yet been deserted, but was still the chief city of Kosala, when its new name of Sāketa was still unknown, and before the seat of government was transferred to Çrāvastī.

Again, in the old part of Book I., Mithilā and Viçālā are spoken of as twin cities under separate rulers, while we know that by Buddha’s time they had coalesced to the famous city of Vaiçālī, which was then ruled by an oligarchy.

The political conditions described in the Rāmāyaṇa indicate the patriarchal rule of kings possessing only a small territory, and never point to the existence of more complex states; while the references of the poets of the Mahābhārata to the dominions in Eastern India ruled by a powerful king, Jarāsandha, and embracing many lands besides Magadha, reflect the political conditions of the fourth century B.C. The cumulative evidence of the above arguments makes it difficult to avoid the conclusion that the kernel of the Rāmāyaṇa was composed before 500 B.C., while the more recent portions were probably not added till the second century B.C. and later.

This conclusion does not at first sight seem to be borne out by the linguistic evidence of the Rāmāyaṇa, For the epic (ārsha) dialect of the Bombay recension, which is practically the same as that of the Mahābhārata, both betrays a stage of development decidedly later than that of Pāṇini, and is taken no notice of by that grammarian. But it is, for all that, not necessarily later in date. For Pāṇini deals only with the refined Sanskrit of the cultured (çishṭa), that is to say, of the Brahmans, which would be more archaic than the popular dialect of wandering rhapsodists; and he would naturally have ignored the latter. Now at the time of the Açoka inscriptions, or hardly more than half a century later than Pāṇini, Prākrit was the language of the people in the part of India where the Rāmāyaṇa was composed. It is, therefore, not at all likely that the Rāmāyaṇa, which aimed at popularity, should have been composed as late as the time of Pāṇini, when it could not have been generally understood. If the language of the epic is later than Pāṇini, it is difficult to see how it escaped the dominating influence of his grammar. It is more likely that the popular Sanskrit of the epics received general currency at a much earlier date by the composition of a poem like that of Vālmīki. A searching comparative investigation of the classical Kāvyas will probably show that they are linguistically more closely connected with the old epic poetry, and that they deviate more from the Pāṇinean standard than is usually supposed.

In style the Rāmāyaṇa is already far removed from the naïve popular epic, in which the story is the chief thing, and not its form. Vālmīki is rich in similes, which he often cumulates; he not infrequently uses the cognate figure called rūpaka or “identification” (e.g. “foot-lotus”) with much skill, and also occasionally employs other ornaments familiar to the classical poets, besides approximating to them in the style of his descriptions. The Rāmāyaṇa, in fact, represents the dawn of the later artificial poetry (kāvya), which was in all probability the direct continuation and development of the art handed down by the rhapsodists who recited Vālmīki’s work. Such a relationship is distinctly recognised by the authors of the great classical epics (mahākavis) when they refer to him as the ādi-kavi or “first poet.”

The story of the Rāmāyaṇa, as narrated in the five genuine books, consists of two distinct parts. The first describes the events at the court of King Daçaratha at Ayodhyā and their consequences. Here we have a purely human and natural account of the intrigues of a queen to set her son upon the throne. There is nothing fantastic in the narrative, nor has it any mythological background. If the epic ended with the return of Rāma’s brother, Bharata, to the capital, after the old king’s death, it might pass for a historical saga. For Ikshvāku, Daçaratha, and Rāma are the names of celebrated and mighty kings, mentioned even in the Rigveda, though not there connected with one another in any way.