A History of Sanskrit Literature

by Arthur Anthony Macdonell

Law.

On Sanskrit legal literature in general, consult the very valuable work of Jolly, Recht und Sitte, in Bühler’s Encyclopædia, 1896 (complete bibliography). There are several secondary Dharma Sūtras of the post-Vedic period. The most important of these is the Vaishṇava Dharma Çāstra or Vishṇu Smṛiti (closely connected with the Kāṭhaka Gṛihya Sūtra), not earlier than 200 A.D. in its final redaction (ed. by Jolly, Calcutta, 1881, trans. by him in the Sacred Books of the East, Oxford, 1880). The regular post-Vedic lawbooks are metrical (mostly in çlokas). They are much wider in scope than the Dharma Sūtras, which are limited to matters connected with religion. The most important and earliest of the metrical Smṛitis is the Mānava Dharma Çāstra, or Code of Manu, not improbably based on a Mānava Dharma Sūtra. It is closely connected with the Mahābhārata, of which three books alone (iii., xii., xvi.) contain as many as 260 of its 2684 çlokas. It probably assumed its present shape not much later than 200 A.D. It was ed. by Jolly, London, 1887; trans. by Bühler, with valuable introd., in the Sacred Books, Oxford, 1886; also trans. by Burnell (ed. by Hopkins), London, 1884; text ed., with seven comm., by Mandlik, Bombay, 1886; text, with Kullūka’s comm., Bombay, 1888, better than Nirn. Sāg. Pr., ed. 1887. Next comes the Yājnavalkya Dharma Çāstra, which is much more concise (1009 çlokas). It was probably based on a Dharma Sūtra of the White Yajurveda; its third section resembles the Pāraskara Gṛihya Sūtra, but it is unmistakably connected with the Mānava Gṛihya Sūtra of the Black Yajurveda. Its approximate date seems to be about 350 A.D. Its author probably belonged to Mithilā, capital of Videha (Tirhut). Yājnavalkya, ed. and trans, by Stenzler, Berlin, 1849; with comm. Mitāksharā, 3rd ed., Bombay, 1892. The Nārada Smṛiti is the first to limit dharma to law in the strict sense. It contains more than 12,000 çlokas, and appears to have been founded chiefly on Manu. Bāṇa mentions a Nāradīya Dharma Çāstra, and Nārada was annotated by one of the earliest legal commentators in the eighth century. His date is probably about 500 A.D. Nārada, ed. by Jolly, Calcutta, 1885, trans. by him in Sacred Books, vol. xxxiii. 1889. A late lawbook is the Parāçara Smṛiti (anterior to 1300 A.D.), ed. in Bombay Sansk. Series, 1893; trans. Bibl. Ind., 1887. The second stage of post-Vedic legal literature is formed by the commentaries. The oldest one preserved is that of Medhātithi on Manu; he dates from about 900 A.D. The most famous comm. on Manu is that of Kullūka-bhaṭṭa, composed at Benares in the fifteenth century, but it is nothing more than a plagiarism of Govindarāja, a commentator of the twelfth century. The most celebrated comm. on Yājnavalkya is the Mitāksharā of Vijnāneçvara, composed about 1100 A.D. It early attained to the position of a standard work, not only in the Dekhan, but even in Benares and a great part of Northern India. In the present century it acquired the greatest importance in the practice of the Anglo-Indian law-courts through Colebrooke’s translation of the section which it contains on the law of inheritance. From about 1000 A.D. onwards, an innumerable multitude of legal compendia, called Dharma-nibandhas, was produced in India. The most imposing of them is the voluminous work in five parts entitled Chaturvarga-chintāmaṇi, composed by Hemādri about 1300 A.D. It hardly treats of law at all, but is a perfect mine of interesting quotations from the Smṛitis and the Purāṇas; it has been edited in the Bibl. Ind. The Dharmaratna of Jīmūtavāhana (probably fifteenth century) may here be mentioned, because part of it is the famous treatise on the law of inheritance entitled Dāyabhāga, which is the chief work of the Bengal School on the subject, and was translated by Colebrooke. It should be noted that the Indian Smṛitis are not on the same footing as the lawbooks of other nations, but are works of private individuals; they were also written by Brahmans for Brahmans, whose caste pretensions they consequently exaggerate. It is therefore important to check their statements by outside evidence.

History.

No work of a directly historical character is met with in Sanskrit literature till after the Muhammadan conquest. This is the Rājatarangiṇī, or “River of Kings,” a chronicle of the kings of Kashmir, begun by its author, Kalhaṇa, in 1148 A.D. It contains nearly 8000 çlokas. The early part of the work is legendary in character. The poet does not become historical till he approaches his own times. This work (ed. M. A. Stein, Bombay, 1892; trans, by Y. C. Datta, Calc., 1898) is of considerable value for the archæology and chronology of Kashmir.

Grammar.

On the native grammatical literature see especially Wackernagel, Altindische Grammatik, vol. i. p. lix. sqq. The oldest grammar preserved is that of Pāṇini, who, however, mentions no fewer than sixty-four predecessors. He belonged to the extreme north-west of India, and probably flourished about 300 B.C. His work consists of nearly 4000 sūtras divided into eight chapters; text with German trans., ed. by Böhtlingk, Leipsic, 1887. Pāṇini had before him a list of irregularly formed words, which survives, in a somewhat modified form, as the Uṇādi Sūtra (ed. by Aufrecht, with Ujjvaladatta’s comm., Bonn, 1859). There are also two appendixes to which Pāṇini refers: one is the Dhātupāṭha, “List of Verbal Roots,” containing some 2000 roots, of which only about 800 have been found in Sanskrit literature, and from which about fifty Vedic verbs are omitted; the second is the Gaṇapāṭha, or “List of Word-Groups,” to which certain rules apply. These gaṇas were metrically arranged in the Gaṇaratna-mahodadhi, composed by Vardhamāna in 1140 A.D. (ed. by Eggeling, London, 1879). Among the earliest attempts to explain Pāṇini was the formulation of rules of interpretation or paribhāshās; a collection of these was made in the last century by Nāgojibhaṭṭa in his Paribhāshenduçekhara (ed. by Kielhorn, Bombay Sansk. Ser., 1868 and 1871). Next we have the Vārttikas or “Notes” of Kātyāyana (probably third century B.C.) on 1245 of Pāṇini’s rules, and, somewhat later, numerous grammatical Kārikās or comments in metrical form: all this critical work was collected by Patanjali in his Mahābhāshya or “Great Commentary,” with supplementary comments of his own (ed. Kielhorn, 3 vols., Bombay). He deals with 1713 rules of Pāṇini. He probably lived in the later half of the second century B.C., and in any case not later than the beginning of our era. The Mahābhāshya was commented on in the seventh century by Bhartṛihari in his Vākyapadīya (ed. in Benares Sansk. Ser.), which is concerned with the philosophy of grammar, and by Kaiyaṭa (probably thirteenth century). About 650 A.D. was composed the first complete comm. on Pāṇini, the Kāçikā Vṛitti or “Benares Commentary,” by Jayāditya and Vāmana (2nd ed. Benares, 1898). In the fifteenth century Rāmachandra, in his Prakriyā-kaumudī, or “Moonlight of Method,” endeavoured to make Pāṇini’s grammar easier by a more practical arrangement of its matter. Bhaṭṭoji’s Siddhānta-kaumudī (seventeenth century) has a similar aim (ed. Nirṇaya Sāgara Press, Bombay, 1894); an abridgment of this work, the Laghu-kaumudī, by Varadarāja (ed. Ballantyne, with English trans., 4th ed., Benares, 1891), is commonly used as an introduction to the native system of grammar. Among non-Pāṇinean grammarians may be mentioned Chandra (about 600 A.D.), the pseudo-Çākaṭāyana (later than the Kāçikā), and, the most important, Hemachandra (12th cent.), author of a Prākrit grammar (ed. and trans. by Pischel, two vols., Halle, 1877–80), and of the Uṇādigaṇa Sūtra (ed. Kirste, Vienna, 1895). The Kātantra of Çarvavarman (ed. Eggeling, Bibl. Ind.) seems to have been the most influential of the later grammars. Vararuchi’s Prākṛita-prakāça is a Prākrit grammar (ed. by Cowell, 2nd ed., 1868). The Mugdhabodha (13th cent.) of Vopadeva is the Sanskrit grammar chiefly used in Bengal. The Phiṭ Sūtra (later than Patanjali) gives rules for the accentuation of nouns (ed. Kielhorn, 1866); Hemachandra’s Lingānuçāsana is a treatise on gender (ed. Franke, Göttingen, 1886). Among European grammars that of Whitney was the first to attempt a historical treatment of the Vedic and Sanskrit language. The first grammar treating Sanskrit from the comparative point of view is the excellent work of Wackernagel, of which, however, only the first part (phonology) has yet appeared. The present writer’s abridgment (London, 1886) of Max Müller’s Sanskrit Grammar is a practical work for the use of beginners of Classical Sanskrit.