The GItagovinda of Jayadeva, written in the 12th century, is entirely different from the works already described. it is a poem intended for performance at a festival of Vishnu, and belongs to that class to which we ascribed the origin of the drama. It exhibits the separation of Krishna from his wife Milk), his love adventures with the shepherdesees, and the reconciliation of the husband and wife, in a series of soup, which are connected and introduced by strophes which describe the situations. The strophes were intended for recitation, the songs to be sung. This is therefore the only Sanskrit poetry which we possese that can properly be culled lyric. But the songs are entirely written on the model of the Prakrit songs, which alone appear to have been Intended for singing, and they have throughout the Prakrit metres. The word garinda itself is a Prakrit form of the word yoreedre, " the master of the allepherdesees," which is one of the titles of Krishna. The scholiasts explain the poem in a mystic sense: Krishna is the soul, which emanated from God, with whom It was originally In union, but was drawn down from him by sinful objects (the shepherdesses); at length, however, full of desire for its original purity, it returns to God. in fact, the author himself, In certain passages, seems to intimate that he had some such deep moaning in view : and perhaps we may here find indications of the influence of the mystic poetry of Persia. (Printed at Calcutta, 1306; and there is an excellent edition by Lassen, Bonn, 1836, Ito.) Nereetiess.—Aa the old epic poems were especially designed for the warrior-caste, so the Vain-as, the third class, have a literature of their own, the Nerrat;re, of which the first which requires notice is Fable. In the' ItAnlyana' and in Menu there are allusions to well-known fables, and others are related in the ' MaliabhArata.' The two chief works of later times, but which are still of some antiquity, are the ' Panchatan tra ' and ' Ilitopadesa.' (Piteay. in Mou. Div.) The ' KathAnakfis' are short narratives and tale. They are known to us chiefly through three modern prose works, which contain obvious marks of having been derived from older metrical collections. They are called ' VetAlapanchavinsati; " the 25 tales of the ghost," by Sivadasa; ' Sukasaptati,'" the 70 talcs of the parrot," known in Europe as the TiltIrdtmeh; from a Persian translation; and the 'SinhAsanadvatrinsati; "the 32 tales of the statues on the throne of Vikmmfiditya." The whole series has only been printed in translations into the modern languages of India. Lassen has published part of the Sanskrit original of the' Vet'u1apanehueinati; and the commencement of the' Sukasaptati; in his ' Anthologia; ' and Prof. hi. Both has given extracts from the Sanskrit text of the 'SinhAsanadviltrinsati; in the 'Journal Asiatique' for 1845, vi. 278, ff. But there is another still more important work, a great collection of all the existing tales, which was undertaken by Soneoleva of Cashmere, in the 12th century ; it is entitled Vrihat katha; " the great narration," or ' Kathfisaritsagara,' " the ocean of the streams of narrations." It is written jn the epic metro, and in a simple style. (About a fourth part of the work has been published by Brockhaus, Leipzig, 1340.) Viewed with reference to their matter, the works of this collection are peculiarly interesting to us, since even in the middle ages they had found their way to Europe under various forums, ' The Book of the Seven Wise Masters,' &c.; and the know ledge of the original text clears op many difficult questions of literary history. Some of the oldest and best of the' Tales of the Thousand and One Nights' have been drawn from this source, and oven in the Arabic version they retain many features which belong only to India. See Prof. Benfey's translation of the Panchatantra; Leipzig, 1859, 2 vole.
There are two other kinds of narrative works, which need only be noticed briefly : the chiniptls, which are narrations in prose and verse, sometimes written in the artificial style; and the Mantras, which are abort and wonderful stories from the history of some celebrated man.
Of this last kind there are two which relate to the kings Vikraratditya and Moja, and at first sight appear to contain some valuable infor mation ; but they are entirely without authority, and have only served to introduce error into questions of literary history. To the elaborate prose works of this class belong the 'DasalcumAracharitm; or " the adventures of the ten princes ; " and the KM:lambert ; ' the former by, Dandi, about the middle of the 11th century, the latter by Winabliatta, of a somewhat later date, and composed in a very abstruse style. Lastly, in the ' VaeavadattA; a romance in prose, written by Subandhu probably as early as the 7th century, the display of alliteration and the love of ambiguity of import are carried to such an extent that the work may truly be called an entire volume of puns.
Before we proceed to the scientific) literature, we must add to the narrative class the scanty rentable of If i'storieol Lit.raturr.—The peculiarly contemplative cast of mind which distinguishes the natives of India, and the circumstance of the whole country having never been formed into a single kingdom, but coneleting of small Independent governments, will sufficiently account for the almost entire want of historical writings. With the exception of a very modern chronicle of Orissa (abridged by Stirling, Asia. Reaear.; xiv.), there is only one historical work in existence in the Sanskrit, 'The Chronicle of Cashmere,' properly entitled 'llitjatamnginl; - — - — "the stream of the kings; " it was written in the 12th century by Kalhana, partly from ancient sources, which lie• specially mentions. There have been three auccesaive continuations of this chronicle, which describe the period of the 3Ioharnmedan dominion down to Akbar. The work is written in the artificial style, in the epic metre, and has a good deal of the form of a ' Purina.' The first, hurt of it has been drawn almost entirely from Buddhist sources. It was first made known in Europe by Wilson's analysis (' Asiat. Resents; xv.); after wards edited at Calcutta, 1335, Ito.; and lastly, the first six books, with a French translation of the whole work by Troyer, were at Paris in 1840-52 in 3 vole. The Buddhists, on the other hand, have a history, chronologically worthy of credit, which is continued according to the series of their patriarchs. Hitherto the only publi cation of the original Indian text has been that of the ' 51aliAvansa; in Pali, by Tumour. (Colombo, 1837, vol. i., Ito.) This deficiency of historical literature is in some degree compensated by numerous in scriptions of various ages, which have been found in all parts of India, and most of -which have hitherto successfully been deciphered. As many of them contain genealogies and other matters which indicate the time when they were written, they are of inestimable value for historical inquiries, being ahnost the only documents which we possess. As to any other historical notices, we are entirely indebted to the writings of the Greeks, the Chinese, and the Arabians, which have been very useful, at least for settling dates.
Scientific Literature.—The sciences to which the natives of India have been original contributors, are philosophy, grammar, and astro nomy, together with algebra.
Philosophy is of great antiquity in India. The contemplative character of the natives must have early led them to metaphysical speculations, and the collision which must soon have occurred between the results of those speculations and the revealed word of the Vedas, would become a principal cause of the wider extension of philosophy. Hence arose many systems; of those which are held to be orthodox we are specially acquainted only with six; but as these six aro related to each other by twos, they can only be regarded as three distinct systems. We are acquainted with them only iu their complete form, in which they have a mutual relation to each other, and we are not able to point out their historical development.