THE CHRONOLOGY OF INDIAN LITERATURE
Although so much has been achieved in the matter of exploring 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 periods. 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 we can give only every few particulars