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f else. Prose is the special property of the active, as poetry
| is of the grave and the imaginative.
!
m
/ Lastly, the natural tendency of primitive compositions
leaned towards poetry rather than prose. The poems of Homer, the songs of Caedmon were preserved from time w immemorial by rhapsodists who earned their livelihood
by singing these works and who transmitted them from age to age through blindly getting them by rote—of course with so many changes incidental to such a mode of preservation. Such was the case in India too. Therefore, in an archaic society, when writing—much less printing—was unknown, when personal communication was in its embryo, oral tradition was the only means of safeguarding their jLy time-honoured literature and for such oral transmission, it is obvious, they found poetry preferable to prose.
, These four causes answer the question of the scarcity of early Sanskrit prose. The overthrow of the Brahminic pedantry by the teachings of Gautama and Kapila was followed by the sutra age which in its turn was supplanted
^ by the Bhashya period. The genius of the Hindu nation
had by this time eminently become practical and the immense development of ideas had tended to encourage individuality of character and to give importance to private and domestic life, As a consequence the literature of fiction showed signsjof speedy progress. The names of QandiH) Bana and Vadibhaslmha stand foremost in the
£| list of Indian romances. The selfsame eye of time, that
noticed the brilliant advancement of Sanskrit romance for