A History of Sanskrit Literature by Arthur Anthony Macdonell

Author:Arthur Anthony Macdonell
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Sanskrit literature -- History and criticism
Published: 2012-12-05T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER X

THE EPICS

(CIRCA 500–50 B.C.)

In turning from the Vedic to the Sanskrit period, we are confronted with a literature which is essentially different from that of the earlier age in matter, spirit, and form. Vedic literature is essentially religious; Sanskrit literature, abundantly developed in every other direction, is profane. But, doubtless as a result of the speculative tendencies of the Upanishads, a moralising spirit at the same time breathes through it as a whole. The religion itself which now prevails is very different from that of the Vedic age. For in the new period the three great gods, Brahmā, Vishṇu, and Çiva are the chief objects of worship. The important deities of the Veda have sunk to a subordinate position, though Indra is still relatively prominent as the chief of a warrior’s heaven. Some new gods of lesser rank have arisen, such as Kubera, god of wealth; Gaṇeça, god of learning; Kārttikeya, god of war; Çrī or Lakshmī, goddess of beauty and fortune; Durgā or Pārvatī, the terrible spouse of Çiva; besides the serpent deities and several classes of demigods and demons.

While the spirit of Vedic literature, at least in its earlier phase, is optimistic, Sanskrit poetry is pervaded by Weltschmerz, resulting from the now universally accepted doctrine of transmigration. To that doctrine, according to which beings pass by gradations from Brahmā through men and animals to the lowest forms of existence, is doubtless also largely due the fantastic element characteristic of this later poetry. Here, for instance, we read of Vishṇu coming down to earth in the shape of animals, of sages and saints wandering between heaven and earth, of human kings visiting Indra in heaven.

Hand in hand with this fondness for introducing the marvellous and supernatural into the description of human events goes a tendency to exaggeration. Thus King Viçvāmitra, we are told, practised penance for thousands of years in succession; and the power of asceticism is described as so great as to cause even the worlds and the gods to tremble. The very bulk of the Mahābhārata, consisting as it does of more than 200,000 lines, is a concrete illustration of this defective sense of proportion.

As regards the form in which it is presented to us, Sanskrit literature contrasts with that of both the earlier and the later Vedic period. While prose was employed in the Yajurvedas and the Brāhmaṇas, and finally attained to a certain degree of development, it almost disappears in Sanskrit, nearly every branch of literature being treated in verse, often much to the detriment of the subject, as in the case of law. The only departments almost entirely restricted to the use of prose are grammar and philosophy, but the cramped and enigmatical style in which these subjects are treated hardly deserves the name of prose at all. Literary prose is found only in fables, fairy tales, romances, and partially in the drama. In consequence of this neglect, the prose of the later period compares unfavourably with that of the Brāhmaṇas. Even the

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