Indian Antiquary Vol 59

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 73

APR., 19:30]
PERIODS IN INDIAN HISTORY
PERIODS IN INDIAN HISTORY. BY F. J. RICKARDS, M.A., I.C.S. (Retired).
(Continued from p. 37.)
3. Literature.
Literature, elsewhere the bed-rock of history, is in India a chronological quagmire. Up to about 500 A.D. its dating is purely conjectural.
In Sanskrit literature two main periods are usually postulated, the “Vedic ” and the "Classical," corresponding to the two periods of the Vedic-Sanskrit language before and after its grammatical fixation; to the Vedic Period are assigned the Vedas, the Brahmanas Upanishads and Sutras, to the Sanskrit Period the Epics, the Paranas and the Law Books. It is impossible to say when the Vedic Period ceased and when the Sanskrit Period began, for, as Dr. Barnett points out, "one pandit might write in a sub-Vedic style at the same time as another is writing almost classicnl stuff."
Moreover, Epios, Puranas and Law Books received their present form a little before or a little after the beginning of the Medieval Period and are the product of a long period of revision and amplification of much older materials. That the development of Sanskrit Literature from VI B.C. to IV A.D. was continuous most scholars are agreed, but the actual form of the several works that have survived prior to their final recension is a matter of inference.
The partial eclipse of Sanskrit literature is of political origin; the political dominance which the priestly caste had achieved in the Upper Gangetic plain by 600 B.C. was not acceptable to the laity of Bihar, and the eastward drift of Brahmanic culture provoked a revolt. In Bihar "the Kshatriyas," writes Dr. Barnett, “ asserted themselves as de facto rulers of society and forced the Brahmans to accept them and to buttress up the royal power with a theory of divine right." Buddhism and Jainism are Kshatriya movements; their literature is Prakrit, and the older parts of the Epics are Kshatriya documents. Dr. Barnett suggests 500-150 B.C. as the "Kshatriya Period"; the period 150 B.C.-300 A.D. he would call “Proto-Classical," the period in which the Brahmans reconstructed their culture on new foundations and the Epics assumed their final form.
By the close of the Early Period the Brahmans had achieved success and the Medieval Period opens with the "Golden Age" of Classical Sanskrit, the age of the Drama and Lyric, of Science, Art, and Philosophy, of a culture which before long saturated India from end to end, and gave to Indian civilization a unity as distinctive as that which Græco-Roman cul. ture has given to the warring states of Medieval and Modern Europe.
The shock of Muhammadan conquest fell heavily on the homeland of Sanskrit literature, and from 1000 A.D. onwards culture became provincialized. The Period 1200-1500 A.D. is relatively sterile.
Vernacular literature of Aryan stock belongs mainly to the Modern Period, though its beginnings go back to XII A.D. Of Dravidian literature Tamil is the richest and most ancient ; some would place its“ Augustan Age"in II A.D. A new epoch begins with the Saiva Saint Sambandhar who flourished 650 A.D. Between that date and 1200 A.D. the Tirumurai and the Naldyira-prabandham, the canons of the southern Saivas and Vaishnavas respectively, were completed, and with XIII A.D. begins a third epoch.
Kanarese literature, too, presents similar phases; though the earliest extant work dates from about 850 A.D. Till near the close of XII A.D. the writers are almost exclusively Jain; the period 1200-1500 is dominated by the Lingavat movement, the succeeding centuries by the Vaishnava revival.