Professor Wilson fifty years ago, in his “Hindu Theatre;” and translators, English and German, have been busy since. Of course the inimitable finish of style vanishes in translation.

The two chief dramatists are Kālidāsa and Bhavabhūti; the first, in a sense, the Sophocles, the second, the Eschylus of the East. The first is said to have lived at the court of Vikramaditya in the first century B.C., the second in the eighth century A.D. It is curious that each has left a trilogy of plays. The palm must be given to Kālidāsa for sweetness, taste, and melody. His Shakuntalā (the name of the heroine) is a gem without a flaw. Goethe says,

"Wouldst thou the young year's blossoms and the fruits of its decline, And all by which the soul is charmed, enraptured, feasted, fed; Wouldst thou the earth and heaven itself in one sole name combine?

I name thee, O Shakuntalā, and all at once is said."

We give two extracts from Professor Williams, though we would again remind the reader of the whole play that no translation can transmit the subtile flavour of beauty and grace:

"Not seldom in our happy hours of ease,

When thought is still, the sight of some fair form,

Or mournful fall of music breathing low,

Will stir strange fancies, thrilling all the soul

With a mysterious sadness, and a sense
Of vague yet earnest longing. Can it be
That the dim memory of events long past,

Or friendships formed in other states of being,
Flits like a passing shadow o'er the spirit?"

The following are favourite illustrations of Hindu poets :-
"The loftiest trees bend humbly to the ground
Beneath the teeming burden of their fruit;
High in the vernal sky the pregnant clouds
Suspend their stately course, and hanging low
Scatter their sparkling treasure o'er the earth:
Even such is true benevolence; the good

Are never rendered arrogant by riches."

Another of his plays, Vikramurvasi, is a great favourite. Bhavabhūti's three works are, Mālati-mādhava, (the names of the two characters,) Maha-vira-charita, (the history of the great hero, Rama), and Uttara-Rāma-charita, (the history of the closing years of Rama). Of one of the most popular plays, the Mrich-chakatikā, (“ claycart,") the author is unknown. An allegorical play of the different virtues and vices is the Prabodha-chandrodaya, ("Rise of the Moon of Intelligence").

A very popular class of literature in India is found in the "Moral Treatises," which are very numerous, and take the form of moral precepts, or texts, illustrated by almost countless tales and fables. Examples of the texts are the following :—

"He has all wealth who has a mind contented :

To one whose foot is covered with a shoe

The earth appears all carpeted with leather."

"Even a blockhead may respect inspire,
So long as he is suitably attired;

A fool may gain esteem among the wise,
So long as he has sense to hold his tongue."
"Strive not too anxiously for a subsistence,
Thy Maker will provide thee sustenance;
No sooner is a human being born

Than milk for his support streams from the breast."
"Whoever, quitting certainties, pursues

Uncertain things, may lose his certainties."

"Disinclination to begin a work

Through fear of failure, is a mark of weakness;

Is food renounced through fear of indigestion ?"

"A man may on affliction's touchstone learn

The worth of his own kindred, wife, and servants,
Also of his own mind and character."

Such sayings might be quoted without end. In works of the kind referred to each text is supported by stories of men and animals. The stock-book on the subject is the Pancha-tantra, the parent of the Hitōpadesha; and through Persia, Arabia, Italy, and France, of Pilpay's Fables, and many of the fables current in Europe for ages past. Panchatantra means "The Five Schemes or Methods." The work treats of the causes of the division of friends, acquisition of friends, enmity, loss of what has been gained, acting without thought. The work is translated into every Indian language, and is most popular with all classes. Hitōpadesha (good counsel) is an abridgment. A singular work, named from the author, Bhartri-hari, consists of three hundred verses, divided equally between three subjects,-Love, Morality, and Asceticism. Other celebrated works of the same class are, Dasha-kumāra-charita, (History of Ten Princes,) Vetāla-pancha-vimshati, (Twenty-five Tales of a demon of this name,) Shuka-saptati, (Seventy Tales of a Parrot,) Kathārnava, (Ocean of Stories).

A most singular product of the Hindu mind is the number of works bearing a double meaning, as the words are differently divided. The object of the writers seems to be to display their own ingenuity and the capacities of the Sanscrit language, and in this they are wonderfully successful. The waste of skill is infinite. To translate such works is impossible. The effect would simply be to bewilder. But apart from this feature many of the works, in which it abounds, contain some of the richest poetry and imagination of India. Such works are the Kadambari, the Vasava-datta, the Naishadhiya, the latter, the history of the famous Nala. Other beautiful works marked by this feature in a less degree are the Megha-dūta, cloud-messenger, a lovely idyll of Kāli-dāsa, in which a banished god sends a message by a cloud to his wife; the Ritu-samhara, another poem by the same author on the Seasons; the Gita-Govinda, song of Krishna by the poet Jaya-dēva. All these works abound in moral precepts.

We now approach the two great Epics of India-only approach, for what can brief description do with poems as much larger in bulk than

VOL. XXH.-FIFTH SERIES.

our epics as Himalayan ranges than western Alps? The Rāmāyana and Maha-Bharata are conjectured to belong to the third or second century B.C. The first, ascribed to the poet Vālmīki, contains twenty-four thousand verses, the second, ascribed to the ubiquitous Vyasa, contains one hundred thousand verses.

The Rāmāyana is the story of the incarnation of Rama, the seventh of Vishnu's ten incarnations, of which, according to Hindu belief, one is still to come. The work is the best known, most loved and venerated throughout India, and not, on literary grounds, without good reason. It supplies material for endless stories and poems. In style it may fitly be compared with the Iliad, possessing the same qualities of directness and natural simplicity, and appealing to the same universal instincts. But its chief merit is in the characters delineated. The character of Rāma as a perfect son, husband, brother, king, is undoubtedly worked out with great skill, and is a model of high virtue. His wife Sītā is just as much the perfect Hindu woman and wife, and is drawn in tender and beautiful colours. His brother Lakshmana is the perfect brother and friend in These and other characters are delineated in the historical form. We may remark that the whole of the Rāmāyana is in course of translation in verse by Mr. Griffith, Principal of a Sanscrit college at Benares, and along with the Maha-Bhārata is very fully represented in Mr. Talboys Wheeler's History of India.

one.

A transcription in Roman characters of a single verse may perhaps give some idea of the musical rhythm which is one of the charms of the poem, and makes its recitation so delightful to Hindu ears:

"Yavat sthāsyanti girayaha

Saritash-cha mahitalē
Tavat Rāmāyana-kathā
Lōkeshu pracharishyati."

"As long as mountains and rivers shall last on the earth's surface, so long shall the story of Ramayana be famous in the world."

It must be remembered that not only Rāma himself, but all the characters who come on the scene, are regarded as incarnations. Just as Rāma is Vishnu in human form, so his wife Sītā is Vishnu's wife, Lakshmi, incarnate. Or rather Rama possesses half of Vishnu's being, his next brother, Bharata, possesses one fourth, and his two younger brothers, Lakshmana and Shatrughna, divide the other half between them. The purpose of the incarnation was the destruction of Ravana, the demonruler of Lanka (Ceylon), who was a terror to gods and men. He is so terrible that "where he is, the sun loses its heat, the winds through fear cease to blow, fire dare not burn, and the billow-crowned ocean remains motionless." By dint of wondrous austerities Rāvana has obtained from Brahma the gift of impregnability to all assailants: but in contempt he omitted to include men among the enemies from whom he had anything to fear. This is the reason why Vishnu assumes human form. The destruction of Ravana is effected thus: Rama is born as the eldest son of Dasha-ratha, King of Ayodhya. His mother's name was Kaushalya. He won his wife Sītā, daughter of King Janaka of Mithilā, in a tournament in which he alone bent the mighty bow of Shiva. Another wife of

Dasha-ratha, Kaikeyi, has obtained a promise from her husband to grant her whatever she wants; and now, jealous of Rāma, demands in fulfilment of the promise the exile of Rama for fourteen years to the forest. After many tender scenes he departs with Sītā. In the forest Ravana's sister falls in love with Rama, and is rejected. In revenge she stirs up her brother against Rāma. Rāvana comes to the forest, and during her husband's absence, carries off Sītā to his island-fastness. By the help of an army of monkeys, whose leader is Hanumanta,-all incarnations of different deities,-Rāma discovers his wife's prison, throws a bridge of rocks across the strait, and in the end kills Rāvana and rescues Sitā. Such is an outline of the story, which abounds in embellishments and episodes of every kind. A curious feature is that Ravana's own brother, Vibhishana, is described as wise and good, taking Rama's side, and trying to win his brother over to peace and justice, though in vain.

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Professor Williams says, Notwithstanding the wilderness of exaggeration and hyperbole through which the reader has to wander, there are in the whole range of the world's literature few more charming poems than the Ramayana. The classical purity, clearness, and simplicity of its style, the exquisite touches of true poetic feeling with which it abounds, its graphic descriptions of heroic incidents and nature's grandest scenes, the deep acquaintance it displays with the conflicting workings and most refined emotions of the human heart, all entitle it to rank among the most beautiful compositions that have appeared at any period or in any country. It is like a spacious and delightful garden, here and there allowed to run wild, but teeming with fruits and flowers, watered by perennial streams, and even its most tangled thickets intersected with delightful pathways." This reminds us of a Hindu writer's description of the Sanscrit tongue quoted by Adelung, "It is a deep and noble forest, abounding in delicious fruits and fragrant flowers, shaded and watered by perennial springs."

We quote first from the Rāmāyana Sītā's appeal to be allowed to accompany her husband to his forest-exile. The translation we believe is by Wilson:

"A wife must share her husband's fate. My duty is to follow thee Where'er thou goest. Apart from thee I would not dwell in heaven itself. Deserted by her lord, a wife is like a miserable corpse.

Close as thy shadow would I cleave to thee in this life and hereafter.

Thou art my king, my guide, my only refuge, my divinity.

It is my fixed resolve to follow thee. If thou must wander forth
Through thorny trackless forests, I will go before thee, treading down
The prickly brambles to make smooth thy path. Walking before thee, I
Shall feel no weariness; the forest-thorns will seem like silken robes,
The bed of leaves a couch of down. To me the shelter of thy presence
Is better far than stately palaces and paradise itself.

Protected by thy arm, gods, demons, men shall have no power to harm me.
With thee I'll live contentedly on roots and fruits. Sweet or not sweet,
If given by thy hand, they will to me be like the food of life.
Roaming with thee in desert wastes, a thousand years will be a day;
Dwelling with thee, e'en hell itself would be to me a heaven of bliss."

We quote also Mr. Griffith's rendering of the descent of the Ganges

from heaven to earth. The sons of a certain king, sixty thousand in number, had been destroyed by Kapila for falsely accusing him of theft. The Ganges was brought down to flow over their remains and raise them to paradise. The god Shiva, to break its fall, first receives it on his head. Thence it falls to the Himalayas.

"On Shiva's head descending first

A rest the torrents found,

Then down in all their might they burst
And roared along the ground.

On countless glittering scales the beam
Of rosy morning flashed,

Where fish and dolphins through the stream
Fallen and falling dashed.

Then bards who chant celestial lays,

And nymphs of heavenly birth,
Flocked round upon that flood to gaze

That streamed from sky to earth.
The gods themselves from every sphere,
Incomparably bright,

Borne in their golden cars drew near
To see the wondrous sight.
The cloudless sky was all aflame
With light of hundred suns,
Where'er the shining chariots came
That bore those holy ones.

So flashed the air with crested snakes
And fish of every hue,

As when the lightning's glory breaks

Through fields of summer blue.

And white foam-clouds and silver spray

Were wildly tossed on high,

Like swans that urge their homeward way
Across the autumn sky."

The stupendous epic, the Maha-Bhārata, from its ponderous size, is less known than the Rāmāyana. In place of the modest seven divisions of the latter the Mahā-Bhārata has eighteen, each one a respectable volume. It is an immense magazine of Hindu mythologic lore, and is the mine from which innumerable writers have drawn their materials. As was stated before, the Bhagavat-gītā is a mere episode in this immense poem. The proper subject occupies no more than one fourth of the space, the rest being histories and legends introduced on all kinds of pretexts. The subject proper is the war between the five Pandava princes, in the main virtuous, and their cousins, the hundred Kauravas, of whom the eldest is Duryodhana, and who are pictured as embodiments of all that is wicked and mean. The contest is for the throne of Hastina-pura, (elephant-city,) the modern Delhi, and capital of ancient India. The five Pandavas are Yudhisthira, the chevalier sans peur et sans reproche, Bhima, a human Hercules, Arjuna, the Achilles of India, and the twins Nakula and Sahadēva, both beautifully drawn. These five brothers have a wife in common, Draupadi. In a former birth she had