Page:The Sanskrit Drama.djvu/65

60 beautiful coins would be indifferent to what is after all the greatest literary creation of Greece.

Nor can we lay much stress on the difficulty of India borrowing anything from the Greek drama, owing to the great difference between the two civilizations, Indian exclusiveness, Indian ignorance of foreign languages, or similar general considerations, because we have really no evidence of value of the feelings and actions of the Indians during the period when the Greek invasion was only the forerunner of invasions by Parthians, Çakas, and Kuṣanas, followed by other less famous but not unimportant immigrants, whose advent vitally affected the population and civilization of the north-west of India. It is plain that in the Gupta dynasty of the fourth century A.D. we find a great Hindu revival, but a revival which evidently drew strength primarily from the east, and we do not know anything definite to enable us to reason a priori on what was, or was not, possible as regards assimilation of the drama. The only decisive evidence possible is that of the actual plays, and unfortunately the results to be attained by examination of them are not at all satisfactory.

It is held by Windisch that the New Attic Comedy, which flourished from 340-260 B.C., must be deemed the source of influence on Indian drama; the fact that no mention of this comedy is specifically made in the few notices we have of drama in the east is doubtless not of importance. On the other hand, we know that Alexandria under the Lagidai became a great centre of Greek learning, and that between Alexandria and Ujjayinī through the port of Barygaza there was a brisk exchange of trade which may have aided in intellectual contact, perhaps especially in the period when Menander's conquests gave Greek products of every sort a special vogue. The new comedy by its making its subject of the everyday life of man was far more suited than any other form of drama to attract imitation. The actual points of contact between the New Comedy and the Sanskrit drama are, however, scanty. The division of both the Roman drama and the Sanskrit into acts, distinguished by