Ancient Moorings

Dr. N. C. Ramanujachari (Srivirinchi)

William Heinemann LTD, London brought out in 1926 A Collection of Complete Short Stories chosen from the Literatures of all Periods and Countries by Barrett H. Clark & Maxim Lieber under the title Great Short Stories of the World and what the book carried about Ancient India is relevant and worth noting even today and is therefore reproduced below for the general appraisal of all interested in the genre:

Sanskrit is the classical language of the Hindus of ancient India. Practically the whole of that extraordinary literature which began with the Vedas and culminated sometime before the close of the Middle ages, was written in Sanskrit.

Our knowledge of the earliest period is vague. The Vedas were composed perhaps before the days of Homer. Beginning perhaps about 500 B.C. and extending to about the time of the Christ, is the period of the epics, during which the Mahabharata and Ramayana were probably written. Both these monumental poems are full of episodes containing the material for short stories.

The outstanding contribution of the ancient Hindus were the fables and tales, most of which are found in large collections. The earliest of these is doubtless the Jataka, or Buddhist “birthstories,” which were in existence at least as early as the Fourth century B.C. The Panchatantras may be as old as the Jataka stories; both are rooted in a common source. Many centuries later an unknown author revised certain parts of the Panchatantra and produced the book known as Hitopadesa, which may be as recent as the Fourteenth Century A.D.

Most of these stories are directly didactic, but for the historian in search of the origin of certain types, the question of the fable and its Indian or Greek origin, is one of the most fascinating in all literature. There are those who claim that the tales in Panchatantra and the Jataka stories are the source of all the fables of the Occident, and others who believe that it was the Hindus who took the fable form from the Ancient Greeks.

Of the other collections of stories the most varied is the famous Kathasaritsagara, or Ocean of Streams of stories, written about 1070A.D. by Somadeva. This was based upon a much earlier collection, which is now lost.

The influence of the Sanskrit tales on the art of the story is almost impossible to estimate; translations and revisions of Sanskrit tales and fables were made as early as Sixth Century B.C., and modern research is demonstrating beyond any doubt the fact that the Ancient Hindus have furnished ideas and literary forms to other nations ever since the dawn of history.

There are one or two points to be observed here.

By 1926, the Short story in Indian Languages was well developed and there are good enough samples available, as we vouch and know today. They could not be documented then! The main purpose of a short story is moralizing the community. This is being done even now without the reader getting embarrassed. Short story as a tool for social change has developed very well all these years and there is yet much more that the genre could bring in if only it is effectively employed.