Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 2.djvu/46

 32 LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE in prose, but they are neither numerous nor refin- ed, being chiefly a few fragments from the Hindu Sastras, and some unimportant ones of native pro- duction, rude and incongruous, and valuable only in so far as they nov^ and then contribute to afford some happy illustrations of the state of society. The Javanese are not in that state of society in which nice points of casuistry and subtle reasonings on abstract and useless questions are agitated and be- come the favourite pursuit of men. They have no controversies, no scholastic disputations like the Brahmans of India, or the Doctors of Arabia, and of the middle ages of Europe. They take no in- terest in such subtleties, and are perhaps unable to comprehend them. Their very language has never been tried on such topics, and wants words to express them. In furnishing examples of the works in question, I shall pursue the principle a- dopted in respect to historical composition, to se- lect the best, and while I warn the reader how little he has to expect, not disgust him by con» temptible and frivolous quotations. From a work called, in imitation of the Hindus, Niti-Sastra, I extract the following fable, the best and most sensible specimen of the literature of the Javanese that has ever occurred to me in the course of my reading. 1
 * Make choice of an equal friend, and do not