D. Appleton and Company
1900
Preface
It is undoubtedly a surprising fact that down to thepresent time no history of Sanskrit literature as a whole has beenwritten in English. For not only does that literature possess muchintrinsic merit, but the light it sheds on the life and thought of thepopulation of our Indian Empire ought to have a peculiar interest forthe British nation. Owing chiefly to the lack of an adequate account ofthe subject, few, even of the young men who leave these shores everyyear to be its future rulers, possess any connected information aboutthe literature in which the civilisation of Modern India can be tracedto its sources, and without which that civilisation cannot be fullyunderstood. It was, therefore, with the greatest pleasure that Iaccepted Mr. Gosse’s invitation to contribute a volume to thisseries of Literatures of the World; for this appeared to me tobe a peculiarly good opportunity for diffusing information on a subjectin which more than twenty years of continuous study and teaching hadinstilled into me an ever-deepening interest.
Professor Max Müller’s valuable History of AncientSanskrit Literature is limited in its scope to the Vedic period. Ithas long been out of print; and Vedic research has necessarily madegreat strides in the forty years which have elapsed since itspublication.
The only book accessible to the English reader on [vi]the history of Sanskrit literature in generalhas hitherto been the translation of Professor Weber’sAcademical Lectures on Indian Literature, as delivered nearlyhalf a century ago at Berlin. The numerous and often very lengthy notesin this work supply the results of research during the next twenty-fiveyears; but as these notes often modify, or even cancel, the statementsof the unaltered original text of 1852, the result is bewildering tothe student. Much new light has been thrown on various branches ofSanskrit literature since 1878, when the last notes were added to thistranslation, which, moreover, is not in any way adapted to the wants ofthe general reader. The only work on the subject appealing to thelatter is the late Sir M