Page:A Comprehensive History of India Vol 2.djvu/163

 Chap. IY.] HINDOO LITERATURE. ]27

must have either spoken it as their mother tongae, or been brought into such a.d. —

immediate contact with it as to borrow a large part of their speech from it. The five northern languages of India, those of the Punjab, Kanoje, Mithila or North Sanscrit-. Behar, Bengal, and Gujerat, do not differ more from Sanscrit than Italian from Latin ; and of the five lano:aao;es of the Deccan, while two of them, those of Orissa and Maharashtra, are so full of Sanscrit words that their existence as languages would be destroyed by expunging them, the other three, the Tamul, Teluo-u, and Carnata, thouo^h so different in structure as to indicate a distinct origin from Sanscrit, have incorporated many of its words in the same way as Enoflish has borrowed from Latin.

While Sanscrit might thus have bsen expected to hold its ground in conse- Now only a

, ., . •, T -x • ^ ^ L dead lan-

quence of the vast area over which it was spoken or understood, it had a strong guage. additional security for its permanence as a living language from the exclusive use of it in all branches of knowledge, sacred and profane. Even when the selfish- ness and ambition of the Brahmins succeeded in excluding the other classes from access to the Veda, it miglit have been expected that the language in which they were written would still be kept alive among the great body of the people, by the numerous legends, hymns, and poems embodied in it, and made familiar to them from their earliest years by being, rehearsed in ordinary life and at public festivals. Another guarantee for permanence was given in the excellence of the language itself, which is pronounced by Sir William Jones, perhaps with some degree of hyperbole, to be " more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either." All these circum- stances, however, have proved unavailing, and the Sanscrit, banished from the tongues of Hindoos, owes its preservation not to them but to the literary treasures which it contains.

Almost everything among the Hindoos that deserves the name of litera- Hindoo

poetry.

ture is composed in verse ; and therefore, without stopping to take any notice of their prose, we pass at once to their poetry. In forming an estimate of it it is necessary to remember that for poetical compositions, when viewed through the medium of translation, great allowance ought to be made. Homer and Virgil, if known only through the translations of Pope and Dryden, would not be thought worthy of a tithe of the encomiums which all who read them in the original are ready to pronounce upon them ; and there is no ground to suppose that any of the translators from the Sanscrit have performed their task so well as Pope and Dryden. Where the two languages vary so much in structure as English and Sanscrit, and not merely the whole train of thought, but all the figures that can be used in the way of ornament and illustration, differ so v,ddely, a translator cannot hope to do much more than give the sense. The reader consequently knows nothing of the melody of the versification, nor of the facility of forming compounds, which are said to give Sanscrit composi- • tions a peculiar charm and add greatly to their richness, and is hence apt to be