History of Sanskrit Literature
What the exam tests
History of Sanskrit Literature tests periods, genres, authors, works and approximate chronology. Expect matching, chronology, and short identification of a work's language, form or patron.
Core rules
- Vedic literature includes Saṃhitā, Brāhmaṇa, Āraṇyaka and Upaniṣad; the epics and Purāṇas form a later narrative corpus.
- Classical poetry and drama flourish with Aśvaghoṣa, Kālidāsa, Bhāravi, Māgha, Bāṇa and Daṇḍin.
- Aśvaghoṣa's Buddhacarita is a Sanskrit Buddhist mahākāvya; Kālidāsa's works include Raghuvaṃśa and Abhijñānaśākuntalam.
- Bāṇa wrote Harṣacarita and Kādambarī; Jayadeva's Gītagovinda is a later lyric devotional work.
Worked example
Match Gītagovinda. It is a lyric poem on Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā by Jayadeva, not a play by Kālidāsa and not a mahākāvya by Aśvaghoṣa. Reason: genre, subject and author all point to the twelfth-century devotional lyric. Approximate dates should be labelled approximate, since the chronology is debated.
Traps
Do not assign works by title alone. Do not date Kālidāsa to the first century without qualification. Do not confuse Bāṇa the prose author with Bhāravi the mahākāvya poet. Do not treat the Mahābhārata as a single-author classical kāvya.