Page:Kalhana's Rajatarangini Vol 1.djvu/31

 INTRODUCTION

KALHANA’S RAJATARANGINI

PRELIMINARY.

Ir hes often been said of the India of the Hindus that it possessed no history. Historical litera- ‘The remark is true if we apply it to history as # science and art, such as classical ture in India. culture in its noblest prose-works hes bequesthed it to us. But it is manifestly wroug if by history is meant either historical development or the materials for studying it. India has never known among its S'astras the study of history such as Greece and Rome cultivated or as modern Europe understands it. Yet the materials for such a study ure equally at our disposal in India, They are con- tained not only in such original sources of information as inscriptions, coins and antiquarian remains generally ; advancing research has also proved that written records of events or of traditions concerning them have by no means been wanting in ancient India.

This is not the place to examine the causes which in India have prevented the growth of s historical literature in the Western sense of the word. They ate most closely connected with deep-rooted peculiarities of Indian thought and culture which have rendered the mind of the Thdisn acholar indifferent to the search for the bare truths of historical facts and have effectively prevented it from arriving at the perception of historical development and change.

It is a direct result of these causes that we find the great mass of what we must call records of Indian history, in de nts of literature which to the student of European history would appear distant from the field of his research, Much of what popular tradition had retained of the events of an early past, has found its way, overgrown and interwoven with myths and legends, into the Indien epics, the Purdgas, and the fable literature. The object to which we owe such records of traditional lore, was didactic and religious, but not historical.

On the other hand we find that artificial Sanskrit poetry hes availed itself, Historical Kivyas. probably from an early date, of historical themes. They serve in this case mainly as a framework for the display of all the subtle poetic art and rhetorical embellish- ment which constitute the characteristic object and raison d'étre of the Kavya. It is no mere chance that almost all ‘ torical * (Caritas) which have yet come to light, deal with the exploits of the poets’ pissy wens orthe laters’ immediate predecessors, Sanskrit poetry of the Kavya type has always been an artificial product,