CLASSICAL SANSKRIT LITERATURE
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Sanskrit learning ; and the book concludes with an account of the Indian theories of poetry. The information in this last section is somewhat meagre ; but we should still feel grateful to the author for recognising the value of this branch and giving it a place in his book. Works on Poetics are not the least important in Sanskrit and as they become better known, we are sure, their worth will be fully appreciated.
One of the questions which Dr. Keith has frequently to consider is that of foreign influence. It is now beyond doubt that such influence is found in one or two spheres of Indian thought, notably Astronomy and Astrology. But the theory of borrowing has been unjustifiably extended to other spheres also. The fact is that in ancient India the best work not only superseded the rest but also led eventually to their disappearance. The superseded works were put aside once for all; and when they were neither copied nor committed to memory, they were generally lost. The result is that the oldest works extant are the best of their kind and it was to account for this peculiar feature that foreign influence was assumed by the early orientalists. But closer study of history has revealed the existence of earlier phases of development ; and in a few cases by good luck the very works representing those phases have been recovered. Dr. Keith is fully alive to this aspect of the matter and discusses the theory of borrowing in more than one case as a myth. The value of this theory is well illustrated in the case of Sanskrit Prose Romance in regard to which a certain scholar, who once believ- ed that Greek literature had affected it, came on further consideration to the conculsion that precisely the reverse had taken place. It is not historical questions alone that our author discusses. For the first time in such books, so far as we know, has the attempt been made here to put matters of literary importance first and here- in lies the chief value of the book. In the case of every important work mentioned, a summary of the contents is given, often based* as it appears, on a first-hand acquaintance with it; and there is added a judicious estimate of its literary worth. The book, in brief, is both scholarly and sympathetic . . }
1 The Mysore University Magazine , September 1924.
