In the middle of the 19th century Sir Henry Niers Elliot availed himself of this trait, and undertook to gather the writings of all the Muhammadan authors on India, with the object of compiling a history of India, as told by its own historians. He collected from all sources, and the Editor sent him catalogues of the books available in the libraries of the Nawab of the Carnatic and the Dewan Mudar-ul-Umra. He did not live to complete his project, but the task was entrusted to Professor John-Dowson, who edited eight volumes of extracts from 17 early Arab geographers and historians of Sind and India, and 154 historians of India. Many of these authors are known to the people of Europe and Asia,—Abul Fazl, Abu Talib, Biladuri, Biruni, Ibn Ilankal, Idrisi, Istak hri, Knzwini, Khafi Khan, Khondamir, Khurdadba, Masudi, Mir Khond, with the royal authors Timur, Haber, Firoz Shah, Aurangzeb, and Jahangir.
Another large class of the literature of Southern Asia relates exclusively to India proper, and emanated from the Brnhmanical branch of the Aryans which penetrated into India from the north-west. They have had in use a spoken language or Prakrita bhasha, and a Sanskrita bhasha or perfected speech. Their Sanskrit literature was almost entirely in sloka or verse. Astronomy, mathematics, medicine, surgery, music, the drama, architecture, and painting engaged their attention, as also law as in the Grihya Sutras and the code of Menu. To the Brahmanical. race India is indebted for the four Vedas,—Rig, Sama, Yajur, and Atharva Veda ; also the 13rahmanas supplementary to the Vedas ; likewise the Sutras or sacred traditions, and two great epics, the Mahabharata and Ramayana. India is also indebted to the Brahman race for a system of theology, for six darsana or schools of philosophy, known as the Sankliya, the Yoga, two Vedanta schools, the Nyaya and the Vaiseshika; and the science of language in grammars and dictionaries has received the attention of their ablest grammarians.
The reverence of the Brahmanic race for learn ing is evinced by their recognising in Saraswati a goddess of learning, and in Ganesh or Ganapati a god of wisdom. In all their letters and all their books they commence with an invocation to Ganesh, and he is propitiated at the beginning of every undertaking.
The early Sanskrit literature comprises the Vedas and the works collected in the Buddhist Tripitaka. The Vedas are religious books of the Hindus, of which the Rig Veda, Yajur Veda, Sama Veda, and Atharva Veda are deemed inspired, and regarded as canonical. But the term is also applied to scientific works, as Ayur Veda, the art of medicine, science of life ; Dhanur Veda, the art of war (the bow) ; Gandharba Veda, the science of music. Besides these are several series of ancient books, the Upa Veda, the Upanishad, etc. The latter writings of this race are to be seen in the Bhagavat Gita, the dramas of Kalidasa, such as Sakuntala and Urvasi, a few episodes from the Mahabharata and Ramayana, such as those of Nala and Yajnadatta hadha, the Hitopadesa, and the sentences of Ithartrihari.
The Mahabharata and the Ramayana books are the national treasuries of the traditions and legends of the Hindus, and contain all that has been preserved of Vedic ideas and institutions, as well as the expression of that later Brahmanical system, which forms the basis of the existing religion and civilisation of the masses, ramifying more or less throughout the entire body of Hindu literature. The Mahabharata is the source of all the Puranas. It is the Purana properly so called. The Bharata war relates to the period of Aryan invasion, when the invaders bad reached the upper courses of the Jumna and Ganges. The Ramayana refers to a period when an Aryan empire had been established in Oudh, and when Vedic rites and institutions had been established in the very heart of Hindustan. There are three works bearing this name, the first edition in Sanskrit, by Valmiki • a later edition in Hindi, by Tulsi Das ; and a third in Tamil, by Peruntevanar.
The Pancha Tantra (five chapters) is one of the oldest collections of Indian fables. It can be traced back to the Gth century A.D. The Ilitopa desa, founded upon it, is still more celebrated. Among the well-known books may be mentioned twenty-five stories of a demon, thirty-two tales of the animated images supporting the throne of Vikramaditya, the tales of a parrot, etc. Each fable is designed to illustrate and exemplify some reflection on worldly vicissitudes, or some precept for human conduct ; and the illustration is as frequently drawn from the intercourse of human beings, as from an imaginary adventure of animal existence ; and this mixture is in some degree a peculiarity of the Hindu plan of fabling or story-telling. Again, these stories are not aggregated promiscuously, and without method, but they are strung together upon some one con nected thread, and arranged in the framework of some continuous narrative, out of which they successively spring,—a sort of which there is no parallel in the fable literature of Greece or Rome. As far, therefore, as regards the objects for which the apologises or stories are designed, and the mode in which they are brought together, this branch of literary composition may be con sidered as original with the Hindus ; and it was the form of their fabling that served as a model. whilst at the same time the subjects of their tales afforded materials, to the story-tellers of Europe in the Middle Ages. That the fables of Pilpay were of Indian extraction was known to the orientalists of Europe in the latter part of the 18th century. • The Vrihat-Katha contains the Sanslait form of the Beast Stories, and the • Hitopadesa and Pancha Tantra have been arranged for translation into many of the languages of Asia'and Europe.