Taken in conjunction with the author's Sanskrit Drama, this work covers the field of classical Sanskrit literature as opposed to the Vedic literature, the epics and the purdnas. To bring the subject-matter within the limits of a single volume has rendered it necessary to treat, the scientific literature briefly. And to avoid discussions of its subject-matter, which appertains rather to the historian of grammar, philosophy law, medicine, astronomy or mathematics, than to the literary historians. The mode of treatment has rendered it possible. For the first time in any treatise in English on Sanskrit literature, to pay due attention to the literary qualities of the kavya.
