5 i
I . °4
jij l amazing in the latter, are not so original or prominant
i' ! ! -Ramesvara's. work. . •
CHAPTER VIL. „ ,-LYRICAL AND DIDACTIC POETRY.
.. The earliest .compositions of the Religious branch of lyric poetry are to be found interweaved in the Samhita of Atharvan. These songs are used as magic spells and sing charms, but in no. way do they display a decayed .state of soceity overcome by u superstitious terror, arid uneasy apprehension.1' " The hymns of this, collection," says A^eber " are no
ijH' ! longer-the expression of direct religious emotion." This is*
ft ii i
r{!; 1 ; inconsistent on the face of it. If there were no sincerity in tho
}\iti i , . J
f IIII I religious conviction, there would be no standing ground for 1
11 J{ J ' ; use of .spells and incantations. If in the Indiari religious lite
;|j;jf I sincerity is to be sought for, it is promiuQnjt in. the environments
of the Atharva Samhita. The Epics and the Puranas preservo poetic prayers in praise of particular deities and in the Tantrat literature they find their classcial expression. " It is in particular by the heaping up of titles under which; the several deities are invoked, that their favour is thought to be won; ancl the thousand-name-prayers form a special class by themselves*. To this category belong also the prayers.in amulet form to wljich a prodigious, virtue is ascribed and whiph enjoy tho highest repute even in the present day." Th.e,modern forms of tie religious lyrics are termed Stotras, which embody in, them n^fe'Oialy' philosophical ideas of devotion but some of \ pf poetic art an4 im^naacts, describing the* f