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N. M. Kansara
The author refers also to the variety of opportunities to the Kavi, the decentralisation of poetic talent and poetic works as a factor contributing to poetic cultivation during the periods of political upheavels and foreign rule, the pure poctic fancies with regard to Aboka tree. Cakor the systems of the seasons, the jasmine and etc., the interplay of the sentient and the insentient aspects of the universe. The chapter closes with an appreciation of the ideals of Indian civilisation which are deemed not only simply fine, but also in great part still desirable indeed necessary for humanity. Dr. Warder rejects the suggestion that Kavya is merely the literature of a class and not of India or of humanity. He further emphasises that Kavya was a national literature, or more correctly the literature of a civilisation, and that in the darkest days it kept the Indian tradition alive. and handed over the best ideals and rospired the struggle to expel the tyrannical invaders and realize these ideals. Finally he exhorts that in the present fusion of world civilisations it is necessary, if we value happiness or our very existence, that this inheritance should be appropriated by the whole human race.
The utility of the work is enhanced by a fairly large bibliography (pp. 219-260) for volumes one to three and by Index (pp. 263-281) to volume one.
Throughout the work Dr. Warder gives ample proof of his firsthand acquaintance, and minute reading of, original Sanskit sources, of a com. prehensive and thoroughly synthetic outlook encompassing the whole field of literary criticism in Sanskrit, and of a rare insight into the proper perspective of the topics discussed in the Sanskrit works on poetics. Rarely has a writer of a history of Sanskrit literatuse taken so much paids to verify the facts with reference to their sources, to set himself free from the cobwebs. of established and indeed tyrannically biased opinions of westerners or westernised Indian veterans, and to correct the bearings of our literary sight and to guard our critical literary judgment from mis. firing or totally miss the literary targets.
The novel typographical devices adopted by the author, viz., the system of using + (plus) for A.D. and ' (minus) for B.C., of cross-references, Sanskrit and other Indian words utilised in origioal, footnotes and bibliography need some comment. The system of using plus and minus for A.D. and B.C. respectively is supposed to be both convenient and secular. Apart from convenience which is but a subjective factor, it cannot be truly secular since the basic reference still remains to be to the Christian Era. It would have been more desirable, and seculiar too, as also in keeping with the spirit of the work, if the corresponding figures of both the Vikrama (or Salivahana) and the Christian Eras were given side by side ! One cannot have any grivance against dividing the entire work into numbered paragraphs
