*33
The Hindu genius isi as we already remarked,' aliefi 'to prose. It is in its essence poetical. Again whatever prose there had ahead}- been before him was purely religions, -hot a whit secular, so that Harichandra's contemporaries had already imbibed a prejudice against prose being used in -ordinary tomancesy In fact they knew nothing of romances at all. The* principle of the days of the French Revolution, "Whatetter is, is right'1 Wa£ by them in a sense literally understood. Besides the already existing works gained for themselves a res* pecft rnore through their age than through their desert. Everything new was spurned as bad and whatever was old was welcomed with respect. It is only this state of things that necessitated Kalidasa's remark :
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.Lastly, there was not a standard of good Sanskrit prose to be followed nor were there . any rules of rhetoricians as to prose- composition in Harichandra's time to be safely relied jupon. The requisites of good prose had to be gathered by comparison and imagination from the- -poetical works extant, in fact, poetry had to be transcribed in prose and new distinguishing features had to be accorded to a novel prose-composition. Thus, Harichandra was passing through an ordeal which might either bring him forward or leave him to rack and ruin in the field 6f letters. .Surely, his trial was highly hazardous. He tried and he succeeded* But, note his success was beyond .comparison relatively to the circumstances of his age. That we know so little of this inaugurator of Sanskrit romance is a sad tale to tell. A passing remark of Bana has given us room for so much inference and comment. What-ever might have been with Harichandra, his successors in the field have left usl their masterpieces, - which afford us some foundation to build a biographical superstructure upon. resembles the Brahmanas but with a few varMfcm. tke temts of the Bhashyas have