Page:Fables and Proverbs from the Sanskrit, being the Hitopadesa.djvu/12

 goddess of prosperity, formed by the churning of the sea; Saraswati, goddess of learning; and Yama, judge of the dead.

Epic and dramatic poetry form also a part of Sanskrit literature. The two great Sanskrit epics are the Ramáyana, or Adventures of Rama (one of the incarnations of Vishnu), and the Maha-bhárata; both of them less ancient than the Vedas, but both so old that, like the Vedas, they were long preserved by oral tradition before they were committed to writing. The Maha-bhárata is in eighteen books, containing altogether 220,000 lines, and is a collection of national legends. In old Indian legend there were two dynasties of the north; those of the Sun, those of the Moon. Rama, the hero of the Ramáyana, was off the line of the Sun; Bhárata, the hero of the chief story in the Maha-bhárata, was off the line of the Moon.

The Bhagavad-Gita is an episode in the Maha-bhárata, a divine song in the form of a calm dialogue on eighteen subjects held between Krishna, the eighth Avatar of Vishnu, and his pupil Arjuna, while tumult of battle raged around them.

The great dramatist in Sanskrit literature was Kalidasa, author of the Sakuntala. The oldest known collection of Fables is the Pancha-Tantra, a collection into Five Tantras or sections, which is represented by the book now in the reader's hand. The Hitopadesa, or Friendly Instructor, in four books. The purpose of its interwoven fables and maxims was to present, in a way likely to win and keep attention, a system of good counsel for right training of a prince in all the chief affairs of life. It comes to us from a far place and time as a manual of worldly wisdom, inspired throughout by the religion of its place and time. There are, in fact, so far as concern the great forces of Nature, but accidental differences between the cities of men or the ant-hills of to-day and yesterday. When allowance has been made for some real progress in civilization, as in the recognition of the place of women in society, every fable in the Hitopadesa can still be applied to human character; every maxim quoted from the wise men of two or three thousand years ago, when parted from the local accidents of form, might find its time for being quoted now in church, at home, or upon Change.

H. M., 1885.