THE CHRONOLOGY OF INDIAN LITERATURE Although so much has been achieved in the matter of explor ing Indian literature, still its actual history is dark and unexplored. Especially, the chronology of Indian literary history is shrouded in a frightening darkness and researches have yet to solve here most of the riddles. It would be indeed fine, convenient and especially for a handbook quite desirable if we could divide Indian literature into three or four periods defined clearly by dates and put the various literary products into one or the other of these period But any such attempt is bound to fail in the present state of affairs and any mention of hypothetical dates would be only an eyewash which would do more harm than good. It is much better to be clear about
this, that regarding the oldest period of Indian literary history, we cannot give any specific data and regarding the later periods Years ago the famous can give only very few W.D. Whitney1 said the American Sanskrit research scholar following sentence which has been often quoted since the "All the data given in Indian literary history are like skittles set up for being knocked down And this is the case to a large extent even today. Even today the most significant researchers differ about the age of the most important Indian literary works not by few years or decades, but even by about a few about a centuries, if not by one to two millennia. What can be ascer- tained with a certain degree of precision is mostly a sort of relative chronology. We can say often: This or that work, this or that literary form is older than some other; but about its real age we can only make presumptions. Language is still the safest differentiating feature for this relative chronology Peculiarities of style are less reliable, for it has often happened
in India that later works have imitated style of earlier works in order to create an impression of the consider antiquity. Moreover able harm is done to relative chronology also by the fact that many works of Indian literature especially those that were most popular with the masses, hence of special interest to us in have undergone several revisions and have come down to us several modified forms. If, for example, we find that in a work whose date has been approximately fixed, Ramayana or Mahabharata is quoted, then the question arises as to whether this quotation refers to the epics as we have them now or to some earlier versions of the same. The uncertainty is all the greater, because in the case of a large majority of the works of the ancient literature the names of the authors are almost unknown to us. They are handed down to us as works of families, schools or monasteries or the author is supposed to be a legendary seer of ancient times. And if we at last come to a period when we deal with works of quite specific individual authors, then we find that as a rule only the family names are mentioned. And it is as vague as when we find in German the
ลำดับวรรณกรรมอินเดียแม้ว่ามากได้รับเกี่ยวกับ ing explor วรรณคดีอินเดีย ยังคงความจริงประวัติไม่มืด และ unexplored ลำดับประวัติวรรณคดีอินเดียเป็นป่าไม้ในที่มืดน่ากลัวโดยเฉพาะ และงานวิจัยยังไม่ได้แก้ที่นี่ที่สุดของปริศนานี้ มันจะเป็นจริง ดี สะดวก และโดยเฉพาะอย่างยิ่งสำหรับเป็นคู่มือเหมาะมากถ้าเราสามารถแบ่ง วรรณคดีอินเดียในรอบระยะเวลา สี่กำหนดไว้ชัดเจนตามที่ต้อง และใส่ผลิตภัณฑ์วรรณคดีต่าง ๆ เป็นหนึ่ง หรืออื่น ๆ ของรอบระยะเวลาเหล่านี้ แต่ใด ๆ เช่นความพยายามที่จะผูก ล้มเหลวในสถานะปัจจุบันของกิจการและพูดถึงทุกวันสมมุติจะ eyewash ที่จะทำอันตรายมากกว่าดีกว่านี้มี ดีกว่ามากที่จะมีความชัดเจนเกี่ยวกับthis, that regarding the oldest period of Indian literary history, we cannot give any specific data and regarding the later periods Years ago the famous can give only very few W.D. Whitney1 said the American Sanskrit research scholar following sentence which has been often quoted since the "All the data given in Indian literary history are like skittles set up for being knocked down And this is the case to a large extent even today. Even today the most significant researchers differ about the age of the most important Indian literary works not by few years or decades, but even by about a few about a centuries, if not by one to two millennia. What can be ascer- tained with a certain degree of precision is mostly a sort of relative chronology. We can say often: This or that work, this or that literary form is older than some other; but about its real age we can only make presumptions. Language is still the safest differentiating feature for this relative chronology Peculiarities of style are less reliable, for it has often happenedin India that later works have imitated style of earlier works in order to create an impression of the consider antiquity. Moreover able harm is done to relative chronology also by the fact that many works of Indian literature especially those that were most popular with the masses, hence of special interest to us in have undergone several revisions and have come down to us several modified forms. If, for example, we find that in a work whose date has been approximately fixed, Ramayana or Mahabharata is quoted, then the question arises as to whether this quotation refers to the epics as we have them now or to some earlier versions of the same. The uncertainty is all the greater, because in the case of a large majority of the works of the ancient literature the names of the authors are almost unknown to us. They are handed down to us as works of families, schools or monasteries or the author is supposed to be a legendary seer of ancient times. And if we at last come to a period when we deal with works of quite specific individual authors, then we find that as a rule only the family names are mentioned. And it is as vague as when we find in German the
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