XXI
ciously developing in the Vedic period. The language of the Brahmanas, the Sutras, the Bhashyas, all these contri-buted to the formation of a suitable style for a novel kind of literary composition.
The history of literary styles of composition is indigenous in origin and inperceptible in growth. Primitive people adapt themselves to such modes of writing as are naturally fitted to their own stages of civilization. The climatic exigencies of a country, the geographical peculiarities, the fertility and richness of the soil, the nature of the government and the civilization around, all these contribute not a little towards the formation of a man. The Arcadian mountaineer, isolated from the rest of the civilized Greece by an impassable barrier of hills and inhaling the air of a swampy atmosphere,, could not be expected to be of an inventive and ingenious mind. The South African savage ever on the verge of starvation, not knowing of to-morrow but half satisfied with what he chases out to-day t unaffected by the frequent climatic changes* driven through thorny woods in season and out of season,, cannot be expected to boast of a literature nor of a civilization, ancestral or his own* Whereas, the ancient Hindus, long ago emigrating from the unfertile regions of the Central Asian plateau and settling themselves happily in the basin of the three rivers of Hindustan were enamoured of the beauty of the sky-clad summits of the Hymalayao mount and the fertility of the soil which the benign hand of Providence blessed with crops, timely and fruitful. All this could not but kindle* in the minds of the semi-savagemance composition was uncons*