Sakoontala | Page 3

as unknown to the European world as the gold-fields of Australia.
The earliest Sanskrit drama with which we are acquainted, the 'Clay-cart,' translated by my predecessor in the Boden Chair at Oxford, Professor H.H. Wilson, is attributed to a regal author, King [S']��draka, the date of whose reign cannot be fixed with any certainty, though some have assigned it to the first or second century B.C. Considering that the nations of Europe can scarcely be said to have possessed a dramatic literature before the fourteenth or fifteenth century of the present era, the great age of the Hind�� plays would of itself be a most interesting and attractive circumstance, even if their poetical merit were not of a very high order. But when to the antiquity of these productions is added their extreme beauty and excellence as literary compositions, and when we also take into account their value as representations of the early condition of Hind�� society--which, notwithstanding the lapse of two thousand years, has in many particulars obeyed the law of unchangeableness ever stamped on the manners and customs of the East--we are led to wonder that the study of the Indian drama has not commended itself in a greater degree to the attention of Europeans, and especially of Englishmen. The English student, at least, is bound by considerations of duty, as well as curiosity, to make himself acquainted with a subject which elucidates and explains the condition of the millions of Hind��s who owe allegiance to his own Sovereign, and are governed by English laws.
Of all the Indian dramatists, indeed of all Indian poets, the most celebrated is K��lid��sa, the writer of the present play. The late Professor Lassen thought it probable that he flourished about the middle of the third century after Christ. Professor Kielhorn of G?ttingen has proved that the composer of the Mandasor Inscription (A.D. 472) knew K��lid��sa's Ritusamh��ra. Hence it may be inferred that Lassen was not far wrong[1]. Possibly some King named Vikram��ditya received K��lid��sa at his Court, and honoured him by his patronage about that time. Little, however, is known of the circumstances of his life. There is certainly no satisfactory evidence to be adduced in support of the tradition current in India that he lived in the time of the great King Vikram��ditya I., whose capital was Ujjayin��, now Oujein.
From the absence of historical literature in India, our knowledge of the state of Hind��st��n between the incursion of Alexander and the Muhammadan conquest is very slight. But it is ascertained with tolerable accuracy that, after the invasion of the kingdoms of Bactria and Afgh��nist��n, the Tartars or Scythians (called by the Hind��s '[S']akas') overran the north-western provinces of India, and retained possession of them. The great Vikram��ditya or Vikram��rka succeeded in driving back the barbaric hordes beyond the Indus, and so consolidated his empire that it extended over the whole of Northern Hind��st��n. His name is even now cherished among the Hind��s with pride and affection. His victory over the Scythians is believed to have taken place about B.C. 57. At any rate this is the starting-point of the Vikrama (also called the M��lava and in later times the Samvat) era, one of the epochs from which the Hind��s still continue to count. There is good authority for affirming that the reign of this Vikram��rka or Vikram��ditya was equal in brilliancy to that of any monarch in any age. He was a liberal patron of science and literature, and gave splendid encouragement to poets, philologists, astronomers, and mathematicians. Nine illustrious men of genius are said to have adorned his Court, and to have been supported by his bounty. They were called the 'Nine Gems'; and a not unnatural tradition, which, however, must be considered untrustworthy, included K��lid��sa among the Nine.
To K��lid��sa (as to another celebrated Indian Dramatist, Bhavabh��ti, who probably flourished in the eighth century) only three plays are attributed; and of these the '[S']akoontal��' (here translated) has acquired the greatest celebrity [2].
Indeed, the popularity of this play with the natives of India exceeds that of any other dramatic, and probably of any other poetical composition [3]. But it is not in India alone that the '[S']akoontal��' is known and admired. Its excellence is now recognized in every literary circle throughout the continent of Europe; and its beauties, if not yet universally known and appreciated, are at least acknowledged by many learned men in every country of the civilized world. The four well-known lines of Goethe, so often quoted in relation to the Indian drama, may here be repeated:
'Willst du die Bl��the des fr��hen, die Fr��chte des sp?teren Jahres, Willst du was reizt und entz��ckt, willst du was s?ttigt und n?hrt, Willst du den Himmel, die Erde, mit einem Namen begreifen: Nenn' ich, [S']akoontal��, Dich, und so ist Alles gesagt.'
'Would'st thou the