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A RECENT STUDY OF INDIAN KAVYA LITERATURE*
-REVIEWED
N. M. Kansara
With Maxmuller's History of Sanskrit Literature (1860) regular works on the subject began to be written in English and other European langu. ages, the most notable among them being those by Weber, Schroeder, Frezer, Macdonell, Oldenberg, V. Henry, Winteraitz, Keith and Windisch, The death of Professor Winternitz before the completion of the English translation of the third volume of his History of Indian Literature (in German) prompted the Calcutta University to supplement in English the work of Winternitz by undertaking to write out afresh the portion dealing with Kavya, Alamkara and other technical sciences.
The works of the European scholars were more or less of the nature of surveys uptodate of the Sanskrit studies of the times and naturally devoted more space for chronological controversies than for the details of the works they were supposed to survey. The real history of Sanskrit literature came to be written on a grand scale by M, Krishnamachariar (1936) who took extraordinary pains to reach, and enter in the references, all that had been said about any author or work anywhere in books, journals or papers. And his monumental work though confined to the Classical Sanskrit literature has remained unsurpassed in its design, depth and coverage.
The earlier European scholars tried to cover the entire tradition but their treatment of the classical literature was very sketchy. Winternitz attempted to instruct the German reader as far as possible in the contents of the literary productions by means of quotations and summaries of the contents. Keith left out the entire mass of the Vedic literature as well as the epic histories and epic legends. De followed Keith as a model. Of course they have written not for specialists only but also in the first place for educated laymen too. There are about half a dozen smaller books meant mainly for students to prepare for the examination. For most of these writers, civilization of man is supposed to have started only with the Greeks, and the realistic and practical outlook, as also the proper sense of values, are completely overlooked in the present day judgment about the ancient Indian culture. In the histories of Sanskrit literature there is no
* INDIAN KAVYA LITERATURE Vol. One, Literary Criticism, by A, K. Warder. publ. Motilal Banarasidass, Delhi, 1972. (Ist Edn.) Rs. 40/-,
