139
Again he writes " A single characteristic more of our romance remains for animadversion.,.,,.the indelicacy which tinges it throughout, as it tinges, in some degree nearly the complete compass of Hindu poetic letters, apology for which is out of question." The doctor is alone in discerning this unpardonable weakness in Hindu literature. This literary weakness, if it can be called so, is not peculiar to India but is-only shared by her in common with all the civilized world* The -jjfc/fe- letters of Greece and Italy afford new few parallels to this manner of literary composition, as do the modern Ian- |
guages of Europe, the ground work of which has been constructed on the refined tongues of the classical civilization. " W&at is natural, cannot be vicious,'1 says Prof. Wilson "and that mind which is only safe in ignorance or which is only defended by decorum possesses but a very feeble defence and a very | \
impotent security." Besides, the learned critic judges a period long gone by, on the standard of his own circle. Manners, are changing and so do our ideas of decorum, decency and delicacy. Subandhu's ideas of delicacy emanated from surroundings altogether alien to the doctor's. The loves of Cupid and Psyche form the subject of no few poems in the English-literature and there has not been an age which has not appreciated the sentiment of love more than anything else. " To avoid immodesty is simply a timid conventionalism." This charge of indelicacy brought against Subandhu's composition and the deductions drawo therefrom with the generalisations* extended to the whole Indian literature are unfounded and ; stand the test of sober criticism*
successor as a romance-writer was Bana» e was one of those mediaeval writers of Sanskrit poetry who introduced a revolution in that art by practically asserting the:eezed to minister to his puerile ambition. There is not one mythological incident to which he has not alluded, not one word whose are signifi-e marriage of Parvati and Siva,-s in question either to Bairxa or