The Development and History of Sanskrit Literature/A. Berriedale Keith. Delhi, Sanjay Prakashan, 2002, xxviii, 575 p., $44. ISBN 81-7453-059-2.

Contents: Preface. I. The language: 1. Sanskrit, Prakrit, and Apabhramsa. II. Belles letters and poetics: 2. The origin and development of Kavya literature. 3. Acvaghosa and early Buddhist Kavya. 4. Kalidasa and the Guptas. 5. Bharavi, Bhatti, Kumaradasa, and Magha. 6. The lesser epic poets. 7. Historical Kavya. 8. Bhartrhari, Amaru, Bilhana, and Jayadeva. 9. Lyric poetry and the anthologics. 10. Gnomic and didactic poetry. 11. The didactic fable. 12. The Brhatkatha and its descendants. 13. The Romantic and the didactic tale. 14. The great Romances. 15. The later Romances and the Campus. 16. The aims and achievement of Sanskrit poetry. 17. The west and Indian literature. 18. Theories of poetry. III. Scientific literature: 19. The origin and characteristics of the scientific literature. 20. Lexicography and metrics. 21. Grammer. 22. Civil and religious law (Dharmasastra). 23. The science of politics and practical life (Arthacastra, Niticastra). 24. The science of love (Kamacastra). 25. Philosophy and religion. 26. Medicine. 27. Astronomy, astrology, and mathematics. English index. Sanskrit index.

"Taken in conjunction with my Sanskrit Drama, published in 1924, this work covers the field of Classical Sanskrit Literature, as opposed to the Vedic Literature, the epics, and the Puranas. To bring the subject-matter within the limits of a single volume has rendered it necessary to treat the scientific literature briefly, and to avoid discussions of its subject-matter which appertain rather to the historian of grammar, philosophy, law, medicine, astronomy, or mathematics, than to the literary historian. This mode of treatment has rendered it possible, for the first time in any treatise in English on Sanskrit Literature, to pay due attention to the literary qualities of the Kavya. Though it was to Englishmen, such as Sir William Jones and H.T. Colebrooke, that our earliest knowledge of Sanskrit poetry was due, no English poet shared Goethe’s marvellous appreciation of the merits of works known to him only through the distorting medium of translations, and attention in England has usually been limited to the Vedic literature, as a source for comparative philology, the history of religion, or Indo-European antiquities; to the mysticism and monism of Sanskrit philosophy; and to the fables and fairy tales in their relations to western parallels." (jacket)

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