ANCIENT INDIA.

This effort was now undertaken on a firmer foundation. Jones gathered around him skilled Brahmans members of the highest priestly caste in Hinduism who were experts in Sanskrit. In the year 1790, he wrote: "Every day I talk Sanskrit with the pandits Hindu scholars or experts; I hope before I leave India to understand it as well as I understand Latin."

It was no longer just a matter of research, but of learning and study. The goal was to achieve clear and satisfying results quickly, so that a proper selection of the most remarkable works of the Hindu mind could be presented to the world. Jones translated the most delightful of all Hindu dramas: the story of the moving fate of the ascetic someone who practices strict self-denial for spiritual reasons maiden, Sakuntala. In the quiet of her forest retreat, she was seen and loved by the royal hunter Dushjanta. This work is full of the most delicate emotion, capturing the fragrance and summer splendor of Indian nature, and composed in the inspired, eloquent rhythms of Kalidasa.*

Even more important than the translation of Sakuntala was the publication of a second great work translated by Jones: the Laws of Manu. It seemed as if a Lycurgus the legendary lawgiver of ancient Sparta from an ancient Eastern era had been discovered. This wonderful picture of a strange people's life was attributed to the most remote antiquity. It provided a description of Brahmanical rule—claimed to be established by the grace of the god Brahma—which was exaggerated and shaped by priestly pride. In this society, the common people are nothing, the prince is of little importance, and the priest is everything. When faced with such a sudden collection of unexpected revelations regarding an ancient—

• It was previously believed—for reasons that have since been disproven by modern scholars—that Kalidasa lived in the first century BC. At that time, it was common to compare him to the Roman poets of the Augustan Age the period of cultural achievement under Emperor Augustus, roughly 27 BC to 14 AD, as he would have been their contemporary. In fact, he lived several centuries later, around the sixth century AD.