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 a.s.sumption of Greek influence in the story of the Ramayana seems to lack foundation. For the tale of the abduction of Sita and the expedition to Lanka 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 Rama bending a powerful bow in order to win Sita 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 Ramayana sheds some additional light on the age of the epic. In the first place, no mention is made of the city of Pataliputra (Patna), which was founded by King Kalac.o.ka (under whom the second Buddhist council was held at Vaicali about 380 B.C.), and which by the time of Megasthenes (300 B.C.) had become the capital of India. Yet Rama is in Book I. (canto 35) described as pa.s.sing 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 Kaucambi, Kanyakubja, and Kampilya, in order to show how far the fame of the Ramayana spread beyond the confines of Kosala, the land of its origin. Had Pataliputra 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 Ramayana regularly called Ayodhya, while the Buddhists, Jains, Greeks, and Patanjali always give it the name of Saketa. Now in the last book of the Ramayana we are told that Rama"s son, Lava, fixed the seat of his government at cravasti, 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 cravasti. All this points to the conclusion that the original Ramayana was composed when the ancient Ayodhya had not yet been deserted, but was still the chief city of Kosala, when its new name of Saketa was still unknown, and before the seat of government was transferred to cravasti.
Again, in the old part of Book I., Mithila and Vicala 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 Vaicali, which was then ruled by an oligarchy.
The political conditions described in the Ramayana 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 Mahabharata to the dominions in Eastern India ruled by a powerful king, Jarasandha, and embracing many lands besides Magadha, reflect the political conditions of the fourth century B.C. The c.u.mulative evidence of the above arguments makes it difficult to avoid the conclusion that the kernel of the Ramayana 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 Ramayana, For the epic (arsha) dialect of the Bombay recension, which is practically the same as that of the Mahabharata, both betrays a stage of development decidedly later than that of Panini, and is taken no notice of by that grammarian. But it is, for all that, not necessarily later in date. For Panini deals only with the refined Sanskrit of the cultured (cishta), 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 Ac.o.ka inscriptions, or hardly more than half a century later than Panini, Prakrit was the language of the people in the part of India where the Ramayana was composed. It is, therefore, not at all likely that the Ramayana, which aimed at popularity, should have been composed as late as the time of Panini, when it could not have been generally understood. If the language of the epic is later than Panini, 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 Valmiki. A searching comparative investigation of the cla.s.sical Kavyas will probably show that they are linguistically more closely connected with the old epic poetry, and that they deviate more from the Paninean standard than is usually supposed.
In style the Ramayana is already far removed from the nave popular epic, in which the story is the chief thing, and not its form. Valmiki is rich in similes, which he often c.u.mulates; he not infrequently uses the cognate figure called rupaka or "identification"
(e.g. "foot-lotus") with much skill, and also occasionally employs other ornaments familiar to the cla.s.sical poets, besides approximating to them in the style of his descriptions. The Ramayana, in fact, represents the dawn of the later artificial poetry (kavya), which was in all probability the direct continuation and development of the art handed down by the rhapsodists who recited Valmiki"s work. Such a relationship is distinctly recognised by the authors of the great cla.s.sical epics (mahakavis) when they refer to him as the adi-kavi or "first poet."
The story of the Ramayana, as narrated in the five genuine books, consists of two distinct parts. The first describes the events at the court of King Dacaratha at Ayodhya 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 Rama"s brother, Bharata, to the capital, after the old king"s death, it might pa.s.s for a historical saga. For Ikshvaku, Dacaratha, and Rama are the names of celebrated and mighty kings, mentioned even in the Rigveda, though not there connected with one another in any way.
The character of the second part is entirely different. Based on a foundation of myths, it is full of the marvellous and fantastic. The oldest theory as to the significance of the story was that of La.s.sen, who held that it was intended to represent allegorically the first attempt of the Aryans to conquer the South. But Rama is nowhere described as founding an Aryan realm in the Dekhan, nor is any such intention on his part indicated anywhere in the epic. Weber subsequently expressed the same view in a somewhat modified form. According to him, the Ramayana was meant to account for the spread of Aryan culture to the South and to Ceylon. But this form of the allegorical theory also lacks any confirmation from the statements of the epic itself; for Rama"s expedition is nowhere represented as producing any change or improvement in the civilisation of the South. The poet knows nothing about the Dekhan beyond the fact that Brahman hermitages are to be found there. Otherwise it is a region haunted by the monsters and fabulous beings with which an Indian imagination would people an unknown land.
There is much more probability in the opinion of Jacobi, that the Ramayana contains no allegory at all, but is based on Indian mythology. The foundation of the second part would thus be a celestial myth of the Veda transformed into a narrative of earthly adventures according to a not uncommon development. Sita, can be traced to the Rigveda, where she appears as the Furrow personified and invoked as a G.o.ddess. In some of the Grihya Sutras she again appears as a genius of the ploughed field, is praised as a being of great beauty, and is accounted the wife of Indra or Parjanya, the rain-G.o.d. There are traces of this origin in the Ramayana itself. For Sita is represented (i. 66) as having emerged from the earth when her father Janaka was once ploughing, and at last she disappears underground in the arms of the G.o.ddess Earth (vii. 97). Her husband, Rama, would be no other than Indra, and his conflict with Ravana, chief of the demons, would represent the Indra-Vritra myth of the Rigveda. This identification is confirmed by the name of Ravana"s son being Indrajit, "Conqueror of Indra," or Indracatru, "Foe of Indra," the latter being actually an epithet of Vritra in the Rigveda. Ravana"s most notable feat, the rape of Sita, has its prototype in the stealing of the cows recovered by Indra. Hanumat, the chief of the monkeys and Rama"s ally in the recovery of Sita, is the son of the wind-G.o.d, with the patronymic Maruti, and is described as flying hundreds of leagues through the air to find Sita. Hence in his figure perhaps survives a reminiscence of Indra"s alliance with the Maruts in his conflict with Vritra, and of the dog Sarama, who, as Indra"s messenger, crosses the waters of the Rasa and tracks the cows. Sarama recurs as the name of a demoness who consoles Sita in her captivity. The name of Hanumat being Sanskrit, the character is probably not borrowed from the aborigines. As Hanumat is at the present day the tutelary deity of village settlements all over India, Prof. Jacobi"s surmise that he must have been connected with agriculture, and may have been a genius of the monsoon, has some probability.
The main story of the Ramayana begins with an account of the city of Ayodhya under the rule of the mighty King Dacaratha, the sons of whose three wives, Kaucalya, Kaikeyi, and Sumitra, are Rama, Bharata, and Lakshmana respectively. Rama is married to Sita, daughter of Janaka, king of Videha. Dacaratha, feeling the approach of old age, one day announces in a great a.s.sembly that he desires to make Rama heir-apparent, an announcement received with general rejoicing because of Rama"s great popularity. Kaikeyi, meanwhile, wishing her son Bharata to succeed, reminds the king that he had once offered her the choice of two boons, of which she had as yet not availed herself. When Dacaratha at last promises to fulfil whatever she may desire, Kaikeyi requests him to appoint Bharata his successor, and to banish Rama for fourteen years. The king, having in vain implored her to retract, pa.s.ses a sleepless night. Next day, when the solemn consecration of Rama is to take place, Dacaratha sends for his son and informs him of his fate. Rama receives the news calmly and prepares to obey his father"s command as his highest duty. Sita and Lakshmana resolve on sharing his fortunes, and accompany him in his exile. The aged king, overcome with grief at parting from his son, withdraws from Kaikeyi, and pa.s.sing the remainder of his days with Rama"s mother, Kaucalya, finally dies lamenting for his banished son. Rama has meanwhile lived peacefully and happily with Sita and his brother in the wild forest of Dandaka. On the death of the old king, Bharata, who in the interval has lived with the parents of his mother, is summoned to the throne. Refusing the succession with n.o.ble indignation, he sets out for the forest in order to bring Rama back to Ayodhya. Rama, though much moved by his brother"s request, declines to return because he must fulfil his vow of exile. Taking off his gold-embroidered shoes, he gives them to Bharata as a sign that he hands over his inheritance to him. Bharata returning to Ayodhya, places Rama"s shoes on the throne, and keeping the royal umbrella over them, holds council and dispenses justice by their side.
Rama now sets about the task of combating the formidable giants that infest the Dandaka forest and are a terror to the pious hermits settled there. Having, by the advice of the sage Agastya, procured the weapons of Indra, he begins a successful conflict, in which he slays many thousands of demons. Their chief, Ravana, enraged and determined on revenge, turns one of his followers into a golden deer, which appears to Sita. While Rama and Lakshmana are engaged, at her request, in pursuit of it, Ravana in the guise of an ascetic approaches Sita, carries her off by force, and wounds the vulture Jatayu, which guards her abode. Rama on his return is seized with grief and despair; but, as he is burning the remains of the vulture, a voice from the pyre proclaims to him how he can conquer his foes and recover his wife. He now proceeds to conclude a solemn alliance with the chiefs of the monkeys, Hanumat and Sugriva. With the help of the latter, Rama slays the terrible giant Bali. Hanumat meanwhile crosses from the mainland to the island of Lanka, the abode of Ravana, in search of Sita. Here he finds her wandering sadly in a grove and announces to her that deliverance is at hand. After slaying a number of demons, he returns and reports his discovery to Rama. A plan of campaign is now arranged. The monkeys having miraculously built a bridge from the continent to Lanka with the aid of the G.o.d of the sea, Rama leads his army across, slays Ravana, and wins back Sita. After she has purified herself from the suspicion of infidelity by the ordeal of fire, Rama joyfully returns with her to Ayodhya, where he reigns gloriously in a.s.sociation with his faithful brother Bharata, and gladdens his subjects with a new golden age.
Such in bare outline is the main story of the Ramayana. By the addition of the first and last books Valmiki"s epic has in the following way been transformed into a poem meant to glorify the G.o.d Vishnu. Ravana, having obtained from Brahma the boon of being invulnerable to G.o.ds, demiG.o.ds, and demons, abuses his immunity in so terrible a manner that the G.o.ds are reduced to despair. Bethinking themselves at last that Ravana had in his arrogance forgotten to ask that he should not be wounded by men, they implore Vishnu to allow himself to be born as a man for the destruction of the demon. Vishnu, consenting, is born as Rama, and accomplishes the task. At the end of the seventh book Brahma and the other G.o.ds come to Rama, pay homage to him, and proclaim that he is really Vishnu, "the glorious lord of the discus." The belief here expressed that Rama is an incarnation of Vishnu, the highest G.o.d, has secured to the hero of our epic the worship of the Hindus down to the present day. That belief, forming the fundamental doctrine of the religious system of Ramanuja in the twelfth and of Ramananda in the fourteenth century, has done much to counteract the spread of the degrading superst.i.tions and impurities of civaism both in the South and in the North of India.
The Ramayana contains several interesting episodes, though, of course, far fewer than the Mahabharata. One of them, a thoroughly Indian story, full of exaggerations and impossibilities, is the legend, told in Book I., of the descent of the Ganges. It relates how the sacred river was brought down from heaven to earth in order to purify the remains of the 60,000 sons of King Sagara, who were reduced to ashes by the sage Kapila when his devotions were disturbed by them.
Another episode (i. 52-65) is that of Vicvamitra, a powerful king, who comes into conflict with the great sage Vasishtha by endeavouring to take away his miraculous cow by force. Vicvamitra then engages in mighty penances, in which he resists the seductions of beautiful nymphs, and which extend over thousands of years, till he finally attains Brahmanhood, and is reconciled with his rival, Vasishtha.
The short episode which relates the origin of the cloka metre is one of the most attractive and poetical. Valmiki in his forest hermitage is preparing to describe worthily the fortunes of Rama. While he is watching a fond pair of birds on the bank of the river, the male is suddenly shot by a hunter, and falls dead on the ground, weltering in his blood. Valmiki, deeply touched by the grief of the bereaved female, involuntarily utters words lamenting the death of her mate and threatening vengeance on the wicked murderer. But, strange to tell, his utterance is no ordinary speech and flows in a melodious stream. As he wanders, lost in thought, towards his hut, Brahma appears and announces to the poet that he has unconsciously created the rhythm of the cloka metre. The deity then bids him compose in this measure the divine poem on the life and deeds of Rama. This story may have a historical significance, for it indicates with some probability that the cla.s.sical form of the cloka was first fixed by Valmiki, the author of the original part of the Ramayana.
The epic contains the following verse foretelling its everlasting fame:--
As long as mountain ranges stand And rivers flow upon the earth: So long will this Ramayana Survive upon the lips of men.
This prophecy has been perhaps even more abundantly fulfilled than the well-known prediction of Horace. No product of Sanskrit literature has enjoyed a greater popularity in India down to the present day than the Ramayana. Its story furnishes the subject of many other Sanskrit poems as well as plays, and still delights, from the lips of reciters, the hearts of myriads of the Indian people, as at the great annual Rama festival held at Benares. It has been translated into many Indian vernaculars. Above all, it inspired the greatest poet of mediaeval Hindustan, Tulsi Das, to compose in Hindi his version of the epic ent.i.tled Ram Charit Manas, which, with its ideal standard of virtue and purity, is a kind of bible to a hundred millions of the people of Northern India.
CHAPTER XI
KAVYA OR COURT EPIC
(Circa 200 B.C.-1100 A.D.)
The real history of the Kavya, or artificial epic poetry of India, does not begin till the first half of the seventh century A.D., with the reign of King Harsha-vardhana of Thanecar and Kanauj (606-648), who ruled over the whole of Northern India, and under whose patronage Bana wrote his historical romance, Harsha-charita, and other works. The date of no Kavya before this landmark has as yet been fixed with certainty. One work, however, which is dominated by the Kavya style, the Brihatsamhita of the astronomer Varahamihira, can without hesitation be a.s.signed to the middle of the sixth century. But as to the date of the most famous cla.s.sical poets, Kalidasa, Subandhu, Bharavi, Gunadhya, and others, we have no historical authority. The most definite statement that can be made about them is that their fame was widely diffused by about 600 A.D., as is attested by the way in which their names are mentioned in Bana and in an inscription of 634 A.D. Some of them, moreover, like Gunadhya, to whose work Subandhu repeatedly alludes, must certainly belong to a much earlier time. The scanty materials supplied by the poets themselves, which might help to determine their dates, are difficult to utilise, because the history of India, both political and social, during the first five centuries of our era, is still involved in obscurity.
With regard to the age of court poetry in general, we have the important literary evidence of the quotations in Patanjali"s Mahabhashya, which show that Kavya flourished in his day, and must have been developed before the beginning of our era. Several of these quoted verses are composed in the artificial metres of the cla.s.sical poetry, while the heroic a.n.u.shtubh clokas agree in matter as well as form, not with the popular, but with the court epics.
We further know that Acvaghosha"s Buddha-charita, or "Doings of Buddha," was translated into Chinese between 414 and 421 A.D. This work not only calls itself a mahakavya, or "great court epic," but is actually written in the Kavya style. Acvaghosha was, according to the Buddhist tradition, a contemporary of King Kanishka, and would thus belong to the first century A.D. In any case, it is evident that his poem could not have been composed later than between 350 and 400 A.D. The mere fact, too, that a Buddhist monk thus early conceived the plan of writing the legend of Buddha according to the rules of the cla.s.sical Sanskrit epic shows how popular the Brahmanical artificial poetry must have become, at any rate by the fourth century A.D., and probably long before.
The progress of epigraphic research during the last quarter of a century has begun to shed considerable light on the history of court poetry during the dark age embracing the first five centuries of our era. Mr. Fleet"s third volume of the Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum contains no fewer than eighteen inscriptions of importance in this respect. These are written mostly in verse, but partly also in elevated prose. They cover a period of two centuries, from about 350 to 550 A.D. Most of them employ the Gupta era, beginning A.D. 319, and first used by Chandragupta II., named Vikramaditya, whose inscriptions and coins range from A.D. 400 to 413. A few of them employ the Malava era, the earlier name of the Vikrama era, which dates from 57 B.C. Several of these inscriptions are pracastis or panegyrics on kings. An examination of them proves that the poetical style prevailing in the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries did not differ from that of the cla.s.sical Kavyas which have been preserved. Samudragupta, the second of the Gupta line, who belongs to the second half of the fourth century, was, we learn, himself a poet, as well as a supporter of poets. Among the latter was at least one, by name Harishena, who in his panegyric on his royal patron, which consists of some thirty lines (nine stanzas) of poetry and about an equal number of lines of prose, shows a mastery of style rivalling that of Kalidasa and Dandin. In agreement with the rule of all the Sanskrit treatises on poetics, his prose is full of inordinately long compounds, one of them containing more than 120 syllables. In his poetry he, like Kalidasa and others, follows the Vidarbha style, in which the avoidance of long compounds is a leading characteristic. In this style, which must have been fully developed by A.D. 300, is also written an inscription by Virasena, the minister of Chandragupta II., Samudragupta"s successor.
A very important inscription dates from the year 529 of the Malava (Vikrama) era, or A.D. 473. It consists of a poem of no fewer than forty-four stanzas (containing 150 metrical lines), composed by a poet named Vatsabhatti, to commemorate the consecration of a temple of the sun at Dacapura (now Mandasor). A detailed examination of this inscription not only leads to the conclusion that in the fifth century a rich Kavya literature must have existed, but in particular shows that the poem has several affinities with Kalidasa"s writings. The latter fact renders it probable that Vatsabhatti, a man of inferior poetic talent, who professes to have produced his work with effort, knew and utilised the poems of Kalidasa. The reign of Chandragupta Vikramaditya II., at the beginning of the fifth century A.D., therefore seems in the meantime the most probable approximate date for India"s greatest poet.
Besides the epigraphic evidence of the Gupta period, we have two important literary prose inscriptions of considerable length, one from Girnar and the other from Nasik, both belonging to the second century A.D. They show that even then there existed a prose Kavya style which, in general character and in many details, resembled that of the cla.s.sical tales and romances. For they not only employ long and frequent compounds, but also the ornaments of alliteration and various kinds of simile and metaphor. Their use of poetical figures is, however, much less frequent and elaborate, occasionally not going beyond the simplicity of the popular epic. They are altogether less artificial than the prose parts of Harishena"s Kavya, and a fortiori than the works of Dandin. Subandhu, and Bana. From the Girnar inscription it appears that its author must have been acquainted with a theory of poetics, that metrical Kavyas conforming to the rules of the Vidarbha style were composed in his day, and that poetry of this kind was cultivated at the courts of princes then as in later times. It cannot be supposed that Kavya literature was a new invention of the second century; it must, on the contrary, have pa.s.sed through a lengthened development before that time. Thus epigraphy not merely confirms the evidence of the Mahabhashya that artificial court poetry originated before the commencement of our era, but shows that that poetry continued to be cultivated throughout the succeeding centuries.
These results of the researches of the late Professor Buhler and of Mr. Fleet render untenable Professor Max Muller"s well-known theory of the renaissance of Sanskrit literature in the sixth century, which was set forth by that scholar with his usual brilliance in India, what can it Teach us? and which held the field for several years.
Professor Max Muller"s preliminary a.s.sertion that the Indians, in consequence of the incursions of the cakas (Scythians) and other foreigners, ceased from literary activity during the first two centuries A.D., is refuted by the evidence of the last two inscriptions mentioned above. Any such interruption of intellectual life during that period is, even apart from epigraphical testimony, rendered highly improbable by other considerations. The Scythians, in the first place, permanently subjugated only about one-fifth of India; for their dominion, which does not appear to have extended farther east than Mathura (Muttra), was limited to the Panjab, Sindh, Gujarat, Rajputana, and the Central Indian Agency. The conquerors, moreover, rapidly became Hinduised. Most of them already had Indian names in the second generation. One of them, Ushabhadata (the Sanskrit Rishabhadatta), described his exploits in an inscription composed in a mixture of Sanskrit and Prakrit. Kanishka himself (78 A.D.), as well as his successors, was a patron of Buddhism; and national Indian architecture and sculpture attained a high development at Mathura under these rulers. When the invaders thus rapidly acquired the civilisation of the comparatively small portion of India they conquered, there is no reason to a.s.sume the suppression of literary activity in that part of the country, much less in India as a whole.
The main thesis of Professor Max Muller is, that in the middle of the sixth century A.D. the reign of a King Vikramaditya of Ujjain, with whom tradition connected the names of Kalidasa and other distinguished authors, was the golden age of Indian court poetry. This renaissance theory is based on Fergusson"s ingenious chronological hypothesis that a supposed King Vikrama of Ujjain, having expelled the Scythians from India, in commemoration of his victory founded the Vikrama era in 544 A.D., dating its commencement back 600 years to 57 B.C. The epigraphical researches of Mr. Fleet have destroyed Fergusson"s hypothesis. From these researches it results that the Vikrama era of 57 B.C., far from having been founded in 544 A.D., had already been in use for more than a century previously under the name of the Malava era (which came to be called the Vikrama era about 800 A.D.). It further appears that no cakas (Scythians) could have been driven out of Western India in the middle of the sixth century, because that country had already been conquered by the Guptas more than a hundred years before. Lastly, it turns out that, though other foreign conquerors, the Hunas, were actually expelled from Western India in the first half of the sixth century, they were driven out, not by a Vikramaditya, but by a king named Yacodharman Vishnuvardhana.
Thus the great King Vikramaditya vanishes from the historical ground of the sixth century into the realm of myth. With Vikramaditya an often-quoted but ill-authenticated verse occurring in a work of the sixteenth century a.s.sociates Dhanvantari, Kshapanaka, Amarasimha, Varahamihira, and Vararuchi as among the "nine gems" of his court. With the disappearance of Vikrama from the sixth century A.D. this verse has lost all chronological validity with reference to the date of the authors it enumerates; it is even inadmissible to conclude from such legendary testimony that they were contemporaries. Even though one of them, Varahamihira, actually does belong to the sixth century, each of them can now only be placed in the sixth century separately and by other arguments. Apart from the mythical Vikramaditya, there is now no reason to suppose that court poetry attained a special development in that century, for Harishena"s paneygyric, and some other epigraphic poems of the Gupta period, show that it flourished greatly at least two hundred years earlier.
None of the other arguments by which it has been attempted to place Kalidasa separately in the sixth century have any cogency. One of the chief of these is derived from the explanation given by the fourteenth-century commentator, Mallinatha, of the word dignaga, "world-elephant," occurring in the 14th stanza of Kalidasa"s Meghaduta. He sees in it a punning allusion to Dignaga, a hated rival of the poet. This explanation, to begin with, is extremely dubious in itself. Then it is uncertain whether Mallinatha means the Buddhist teacher Dignaga. Thirdly, little weight can be attached to the Buddhistic tradition that Dignaga was a pupil of Vasubandhu, for this statement is not found till the sixteenth century. Fourthly, the a.s.sertion that Vasubandhu belongs to the sixth century depends chiefly on the Vikramaditya theory, and is opposed to Chinese evidence, which indicates that works of Vasubandhu were translated in A.D. 404. Thus every link in the chain of this argument is very weak.
The other main argument is that Kalidasa must have lived after Aryabhata (A.D. 499), because he shows a knowledge of the scientific astronomy borrowed from the Greeks. But it has been shown by Dr. Thibaut that an Indian astronomical treatise, undoubtedly written under Greek influence, the Romaka Siddhanta, is older than Aryabhata, and cannot be placed later than A.D. 400. It may be added that a pa.s.sage of Kalidasa"s Raghuvamca (xiv. 40) has been erroneously adduced in support of the astronomical argument, as implying that eclipses of the moon are due to the shadow of the earth: it really refers only to the spots in the moon as caused, in accordance with the doctrine of the Puranas, by a reflection of the earth.
Thus there is, in the present state of our knowledge, good reason to suppose that Kalidasa lived not in the sixth, but in the beginning of the fifth century A.D. The question of his age, however, is not likely to be definitely solved till the language, the style, and the poetical technique of each of his works have been minutely investigated, in comparison with datable epigraphic doc.u.ments, as well as with the rules given by the oldest Sanskrit treatises on poetics.
As the popular epic poetry of the Mahabharata was the chief source of the Puranas, so the Ramayana, the earliest artificial epic, was succeeded, though after a long interval of time, by a number of Kavyas ranging from the fifth to the twelfth century. While in the old epic poetry form is subordinated to matter, it is of primary importance in the Kavyas, the matter becoming more and more merely a means for the display of tricks of style. The later the author of a Kavya is, the more he seeks to win the admiration of his audience by the cleverness of his conceits and the ingenuity of his diction, appealing always to the head rather than the heart. Even the very best of the Kavyas were composed in more strict conformity, with fixed rules than the poetry of any other country. For not only is the language dominated by the grammatical rules of Panini, but the style is regulated by the elaborate laws about various forms of alliteration and figures of speech laid down in the treatises on poetics.
The two most important Kavyas are Kalidasa"s Raghuvamca and k.u.mara-sambhava, both distinguished by independence of treatment as well as considerable poetical beauty. They have several stanzas in common, many others which offer but slight variations, and a large number of pa.s.sages which, though differing in expression, are strikingly a.n.a.logous in thought. In both poems, too, the same metre is employed to describe the same situation. In both poems each canto is, as a rule, composed in one metre, but changes with the beginning of the new canto. The prevailing metres are the cla.s.sical form of the a.n.u.shtubh and the upajati, a development of the Vedic trishtubh.
The Raghuvamca, or "Race of Raghu," which consists of nineteen cantos, describes the life of Rama together with an account of his forefathers and successors. The first nine cantos deal with his nearest four ancestors, beginning with Dilipa and his son Raghu. The story of Rama occupies the next six (x.-xv.), and agrees pretty closely with that in the Ramayana of Valmiki, whom Kalidasa here (xv. 41) speaks of as "the first poet." The following two cantos are concerned with the three nearest descendants of Rama, while the last two run through the remainder of twenty-four kings who reigned in Ayodhya as his descendants, ending rather abruptly with the death of the voluptuous King Agnivarna. The names of these successors of Rama agree closely with those in the list given in the Vishnu-purana.
The narrative in the Raghuvamca moves with some rapidity, not being too much impeded by long descriptions. It abounds with apt and striking similes and contains much genuine poetry, while the style, for a Kavya, is simple, though many pa.s.sages are undoubtedly too artificial for the European taste. The following stanza, sung by a bard whose duty it is to waken the king in the morning (v. 75), may serve as a specimen--
The flow"rs to thee presented droop and fade, The lamps have lost the wreath of rays they shed, Thy sweet-voiced parrot, in his cage confined, Repeats the call we sound to waken thee.
More than twenty commentaries on the Raghuvamca are known. The most famous is the Samjivani of Mallinatha, who explains every word of the text, and who has the great merit of endeavouring to find out and preserve the readings of the poet himself. He knew a number of earlier commentaries, among which he names with approval those of Dakshinavarta and Natha. The latter no longer exist. Among the other extant commentaries may be mentioned the Subodhini, composed by Dinakara Micra in 1385, and the cicuhitaishini, by a Jain named Charitravardhana, of which Dinakara"s work appears to be an epitome.
The k.u.mara-sambhava, or the "Birth of the War-G.o.d," consists, when complete, of seventeen cantos. The first seven are entirely devoted to the courtship and wedding of the G.o.d civa and of Parvati, daughter of Himalaya, the parents of the youthful G.o.d. This fact in itself indicates that description is the prevailing characteristic of the poem. It abounds in that poetical miniature painting in which lies the chief literary strength of the Indian. Affording the poet free scope for the indulgence of his rich and original imaginative powers, it is conspicuous for wealth of ill.u.s.tration. The following rendering of a stanza in the Viyogini metre (in which lines of ten and eleven syllables ending iambically alternate) may serve as a specimen. The poet shows how the duty of a wife following her husband in death is exemplified even by objects in Nature poetically conceived as spouses--
After the Lord of Night the moonlight goes, Along with the cloud the lightning is dissolved: Wives ever follow in their husbands" path; Even things bereft of sense obey this law.