xxn
I fv

Aryan settlers, the desire to express themselves in the best language they could. "The origin of poetry," says Sayce "is from a wish to set forth in clear and distinct language the ideas which possess the mind." A sort of musical rhythm and emphasis was essential to this and this they found in poetry.
Secondly, fl Ancient India," says W. W. Hunter "is isfctetially philosophic in its ideas and actions." The ancient sages, as we learn from a perusal of the Vedic literature, spent their lives in philosophic contemplations and their earnest endeavours have been rightly rewarded by the praises of succeeding generatioiits. A common philoso-{ phical creed, it is the opinion of some scteiai^ must have
prevailed in India long before the crystallisation of rationalistic inquiry into separate systems. On examination, this common creed should have descended to the Gangetic plain along with the Aryan settlers from the central Asiatic regions. To an expression of such philosophic inquiry or contemplation, they found poetry better adapted than prose. This conjecture is supported by a sentence of Emerson's: "Poetry is the perpetual endeavour to express the spirit of the thing, to search the life and reason which causes the brute body to exist or desist. All words df such inquiry are poems."
; Again, " India is singularly the land of poetry." The II 1 . ' HWu iBind^ dreamy, mystic and speculative, with the
*' ' imaginary side more highly developed than the active*
naturally had a mania for poetry more thn& for anythingd not but kindle* in the minds of the semi-savagemance composition was uncons*