The oldest treatises on prosody have already been referred to in the account of the technical branches of the later Vedic literature. Among more modern treatises the most important is the Mrita-sanjivani, a commentary on Pingala's Sara, by Halayudha (perhaps identical with the author of the glossary above referred to). Sanskrit prosody, which is probably not surpassed by any other either in variety of metre or in har moniousness of rhythm, recognizes two classes of metres, namely, such as consist of a certain number of syllables of fixed quantity, and such as are regulated by groups of breves or metrical instants, this latter class being again of two kinds, according as it is or is not bound by a fixed order of feet.
The musical art has been practised in India from early times. The theoretic treatises on profane music now extant are, however, quite modern productions. The two most highly esteemed works are the Safigita-ratnakara ("jewel mine of music"), by
and the Sangita-darpana ("mirror of music"), by Damodara. Each of these works consists of seven chapters, treating respectively of—(r) sound and musical notes (svara) ; (2) melodies (raga) ; (3) music in connection with the human voice (prakirnaka) ; (4) musical compositions (prabandha); (5) time and measure (Oa); (6) musical instru ments and instrumental music (v5dya); (7) dancing and acting (nritta or nritya).
Treatises on the theory of literary composition are very numerous. Indeed, a subject of this description—involving such nice distinctions as regards the various kinds of poetic composition, the particular subjects and characters adapted for them, and the different sentiments or mental conditions capable of being both depicted and called forth by them—could not but be congenial to the Indian mind. The Ndtya gdstra of Bharata is possibly as early as the sixth century. Not much later is the Kavyadaria, or "mirror of poetry," by Dandin, the author of the novel Dakkumdracharita. The work consists of three chapters, treating—(r) of two different local styles (riti) of poetry, the Gaudi or eastern and the Vai darbhi or southern (to which later critics add four others, the Magadhi, Lati, and Avantika) ; (2) of the graces and ornaments of style, as tropes, figures, similes; (3) of alliteration, literary puzzles and twelve kinds of faults to be avoided in com posing poems. Other important works are the Kavyalankara, by the Kashmirian Rudrata (9th century), the Da.farfipa, or "ten kinds of drama," by Dhanamjaya (loth century), the Sarasvati kanthdbjiarana, "the neck-ornament of Sarasvati (the goddess of eloquence)," a treatise, in five chapters, on poetics generally rth century), the Kavya-prakcifa, "the lustre of poetry," (12th century) by Mammata, a Kashmirian, and the late but important Sdhitya-darpana (c. A.D. 1450).
Though the early cultivation of the healing art is amply attested by frequent allu sions in the Vedic writings, it was doubtless not till a much later period that the medical practice advanced beyond a certain degree of empirical skill and pharmaceutic routine. From the simul taneous mention of the three humours (wind, bile, phlegm) in a varttika to Panini (v. r, 38), some kind of humoral pathology would, however, seem to have been prevalent among Indian phy sicians several centuries before our era. The oldest existing work is supposed to be the Charaka-samhitd, a bulky cyclopaedia in glokas, mixed with prose sections, which consists of eight chap ters, and was probably composed for the most part in the early centuries of our era. Whether the Chinese tradition which makes Charaka the court physician of King Kanishka (c. A.D. ma) rests
on fact is uncertain. Of equal authority, but doubtless somewhat more modern, is the Sufruta (-samhita), which Sugruta is said to have received from Dhanvantari, the Indian Aesculapius, whose name, however, appears also among the "nine gems." It consists of six chapters, and is likewise composed in mixed verse and prose—the greater simplicity of arrangement, as well as some slight attention paid in it to surgery, betokening an advance upon Charaka. Both works are, however, characterized by great pro lixity, and contain much matter which has little connection with medicine.
Early Indian astronomical knowledge is summed up in the Jyotisha Vedanga (ed. Weber. 1862). A more scientific era is marked by the appearance of the five original Siddhantas (partly extant in revised redactions and in quotations), the very names of two of which suggest Western influence, namely, the Paitamaka-, Surya-, Vasishtha-, Romaka (i.e., Roman) and Pazdlia-siddhantas. Based on these are the works of the most distinguished Indian astronomers, namely, Aryabhata, probably born in 476; Varaha-mihira, probably 505– 587; Brahma-gupta, who completed his Brahma-siddhcinta in 628; Bhatta Utpala (loth century), distinguished especially as commentator of Varaha-mihira; and Bhaskara Acharya, who, born in 1114, finished his great course of astronomy, the Sid dhanta-sfiromani, in 115o. In the works of several of these writers, from Aryabhata onwards, special attention is paid to mathe matical (especially arithmetical and algebraic) computations. The question whether Aryabhata was acquainted with the researches of the Greek algebraist Diophantus (c. A.D. 36o) remains still unsettled, but, even if this was the case, algebraic science seems to have been carried by him beyond the point attained by the Greeks.
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