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The Erotic branch is amorous and worldly in its nature. JRLeligious conceptions have no record therein. The earliest of -tti em are found scattered in the hymns of the Yajus and the :Saman Samhitas, The Epics and the Puranas have, though not in. isolated pieces, series of verses devoted to amorous descriptions and Valmiki's poetry not unfrequently displays a perfection of lyrical poetry. It is not, until we come to the first -*c<snturies of the Christian era, that we find whole poems devoted to the erotic poetry. The lines are often drawn with a master-^ Inand and eminent poetic success. The poet finds the fullest •soope for his imagination. Nature plays the most prominent p^art. The plant and the animal are treated with much charm. ** "Various birds to which poetic myths are attached are fre-*<quently introduced as furnishing analogies to human life and love. The Chataka, which would rather die of thirst than -drink aught bur the rain-drops from cloud, affords an illustration of pride. The Chakora, supposed to imbibe the rays of the , affords a parallel to the lover who with his eyes drinks
the beams of his beloved face. The Chakravaka, which, tabled to be condemned to nocturnal separation from his mate, <:alls to her with plaintive cry during the watches of the night, --serves as aja emblem of conjugal fidelity* In all this lyric *poetry the bright eyes and beauty of Indian girls find a setting feio. scenes brilliant with blossoming trees, fragrant with flowers, gay with the plumage and vocal with the song of birds, -•diversified with lotus ponds steeped in tropical sunshine and -with large-eyed gazelles reclining in the shade."
: .The Didactic literature forms the largest bulk of the minor Indian poetry. The philosophical tendency of the Indian mind <2rul tinted the science of morals since the dawn of its civilization, -which found .an abundant expression in the so-called pf poetic art an4 im^naacts, describing the* f