________________
186
BUDDHIST INDIA
ances.
dancing or music' must have included such performBut it was at that time none the less on that account, a very vital and popular part of the national faith."
I have dealt in this chapter, not with the contents, which I have described elsewhere,' but only with the outward form and style of the literature. It shows a curious contrast between the value of the ideas to
be expressed and the childlike incapacity to express them well. We have here, as to style, only the untrained adolescence of the Indian mind. But what vigour it has! The absence of writing materials seems naturally to have affected less the short poems than the style of the prose, and there is much rough and rugged beauty both in the ballads and in the lyrics. Now the style, and much of the thought, is not Buddhist but Indian; and is in some respects the only evidence we possess of the literary ability, at that time, of the Indian peoples. If only we had still some of the ballads out of which the Epics were subsequently formed, they would, I am convinced, show equal limitations, but also equal power. In after times we have evidence of more successful study of the arts and methods of rhetoric and poetry. But never do we find the same virility, the same curious compound of humour and irony and love of
'See, for instance, the Paraskara Grhya Sutra, 2. 7. 3.
? The oldest dramas mentioned by name (second century B.C.) are mystery plays based on episodes in the life of Krishna. From this time onward there is more frequent mention of actors. But the earliest dramas are all lost. The oldest extant ones are of the sixth or seventh century A.D.
3 American Lectures, chapter ii
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
