The Interdependence of Literature | Page 6

It forms a contrast
to the philosophy of the Greeks, and to that of Europeans of a later age.
When the latter have tried to explain the great mystery of God and man,
they have invariably failed. In the beautiful writings of the Greeks,
wherein we find the height of artistic expression and polish, there is a
subsequent gradual decline; but such is not the case in the Old
Testament. In every age fresh beauty and hidden treasure is found in its
pages. Another phase of the Bible which has had a far reaching and
lasting effect upon all language and literature, is its prevailing spirit of
types and symbols. This is conspicuous both in the poetical books and
in those that are didactic or historical. It has had the same influence on
the thoughts and imagination of all Christian people and upon the
poetry and imitative arts of the Middle Ages (and nearly the same upon
later and more cultivated times) that Homer had upon the Ancients. For
in it we find the standard of all our Christian images and figures, and it
gives us a model of imitation that is far more beautiful in itself, and far
more world-wide in its application than anything we can borrow from
the Greeks. We see this in Dante and Tasso, and in other Christian
poets. To the Hebrew, as the original custodians of the Old Testament,
we are indebted for keeping the faith pure when all other nations either
forgot or abandoned it, or else mixed it up with errors and idolatry.
What Moses records of the creation of the world and the first ten
Fathers, is embodied by the Persians, Indians and Chinese in whole
volumes of mythology, and surrounded by a host of fanciful traditions.
Thus we see in the Hebrew as the chosen people of God, a nation able
to preserve its literature intact through captivity, dispersion and
persecution, for a period of four thousand years.
SANSKRIT.

Sanskrit has only recently become known to Europe through the
researches of English and German Oriental scholars. It is now
acknowledged to be the auxiliary and foundation of all civilized speech,
and is important as being the language of an extensive literature which
records the life of a wonderful people from a remote age nearly to the
present time.
The ancient home of the Aryan, or Indo-European race, was in Central
Asia, whence many of its people migrated to the West, and became the
founders of the Persian, Greek and Roman Nations, besides settling in
Spain and England. Other offshoots of the original Aryans took their
lives in their hands and penetrated the passes of the Himalayas,
spreading all over India. Wherever they went, they seem to have held
themselves superior to the aboriginal people whom they found in
possession of the soil.
"The history of civilization," says a well-known authority on literature,
"is everywhere the history of the Aryan race. The forefathers of the
Greek and Roman, of the Englishman and the Hindu, dwelt together in
India, spoke the same language, and worshipped the same gods. The
languages of Europe and India are merely different forms of the
original Aryan speech. This is especially true of the words of common
family life. Father, Mother, brother, sister and widow, are substantially
the same in most of the Aryan languages whether spoken on the banks
of the Ganges, the Tiber or the Thames. The word daughter, which
occurs in nearly all of them, is derived from the Sanskrit word
signifying to draw milk, and preserves the memory of the time when
the daughter was the little milkmaid in the primitive Aryan household."
The Hindu language is founded on the Sanskrit, of which we may name
the books of the Vedas, 1500 B.C.
All the poetical works of Asia, China and Japan are taken almost
entirely from the Hindu, while in Southern Russia the meagre literature
of the Kalmucks is borrowed entirely from the same source. The
Ramayana, or great Hindu poem, must have had its origin in the
history-to-be of Christ. It has been translated into Italian and published
in Paris. The Hitopadesa, a collection of fables and apologues, has been
translated into more languages than any book except the Bible. It has
found its way all over the civilized world, and is the model of the fables
of all countries.

The dramas of Kalidasa, the Hindu Shakespeare, contain many
episodes borrowed from the great Epic poems. The Messenger Cloud of
this poet is not surpassed by any European writer of verse. The
Ramayon and the Mahabharata are the two great Epic poems of India,
and they exceed in conception and magnitude any of the Epic poems in
the world, surpassing the Iliad, the Odyssey and the Jerusalem
Delivered. The Ramayon, of seven Cantos,