2023-03-26 16:29:40 by ambuda-bot
This page has not been fully proofread.
xvii
Sanskrit poetry is far far wider. The amount of the
total motion in life is a constant factor. If the scope
is more comprehensive, the motion is slower. If the
region is more limited, life moves quicker. In the
modern world the area comprehended within active
conscious life is so small that things have to move
very fast to make the constant total.
Big industries and mass production, international
trade and competition, steam and motor arrangements
for traffic, telegraphic and wireless installations, the
craze of a university student in England eagerly
awaiting the results of a foot-ball match in Sydney,
daily-papers coming out in many editions every day
and broad-casting sensational news, cinematographs,
detective novels and lyric poetry-all these things
have created certain rigid standards of taste in modern
life, which make it impossible for a modern man to
see clearly things beyond. Man is too busy to know
that he is living within an enclosure of iron bars, and
still he believes that he is the freest of beings.
Sanskrit epics were written at a time when these
conditions did not prevail, when men were living
within an entirely different set of standards and rules.
Then life was wider and more comprehensive and
consequently things moved far more slowly. Man had
more leisure. Man had more patience. There was
better provision for the proper utilisation of the leisure.
Man could and would then linger through the long
descriptions of cities, gardens and the agonies of young
hearts in separation. The epic now presented to the
C
Sanskrit poetry is far far wider. The amount of the
total motion in life is a constant factor. If the scope
is more comprehensive, the motion is slower. If the
region is more limited, life moves quicker. In the
modern world the area comprehended within active
conscious life is so small that things have to move
very fast to make the constant total.
Big industries and mass production, international
trade and competition, steam and motor arrangements
for traffic, telegraphic and wireless installations, the
craze of a university student in England eagerly
awaiting the results of a foot-ball match in Sydney,
daily-papers coming out in many editions every day
and broad-casting sensational news, cinematographs,
detective novels and lyric poetry-all these things
have created certain rigid standards of taste in modern
life, which make it impossible for a modern man to
see clearly things beyond. Man is too busy to know
that he is living within an enclosure of iron bars, and
still he believes that he is the freest of beings.
Sanskrit epics were written at a time when these
conditions did not prevail, when men were living
within an entirely different set of standards and rules.
Then life was wider and more comprehensive and
consequently things moved far more slowly. Man had
more leisure. Man had more patience. There was
better provision for the proper utilisation of the leisure.
Man could and would then linger through the long
descriptions of cities, gardens and the agonies of young
hearts in separation. The epic now presented to the
C