on older models and on the text-books of dramatic theory, and whose chief merit, when they have any, lies in skill and taste in versification. Valuable bibliographies of the dramas are contained in Mr. Montgomery Schuyler's Bibliography of the Sanskrit Drama (1906), and in Professor Konow's treatise, and it has seemed needless to do more than refer to the most important and accessible editions of the plays mentioned and to treatises which have appeared since the publication of these works.
Though the limits of space available have precluded any full investigation of the style of the dramatists, I have not followed Professor Lévi in leaving this aspect out of consideration. The translations given of the passages cited are intended merely to convey the main sense; I have therefore left without discussion difficulties of interpretation and allusion, and have resorted to prose. Verse translations from Sanskrit sometimes attain very real merit, but normally only in a way which has little affinity with Sanskrit poetry. H. H. Wilson's versions of Sanskrit dramas in his Theatre of the Hindus for this reason, and also because the prose of the dramas is turned into verse, thus fail, despite their many intrinsic merits, to convey any precise idea of the effect of a Sanskrit drama.
I am indebted to my wife for much assistance and criticism.
A. BERRIEDALE KEITH.
EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY,
April, 1923.
