its close found men
like Jones, Revizky, de Sacy and Hammer busily engaged in spreading a
knowledge of Persian literature in Europe.

* * * * *

India, as far as its literature was concerned, did not fare so well. The
struggles of European nations for the mastery of that rich empire did
little towards promoting a knowledge of its religion or its language.
Nor were the efforts of missionaries very successful. Most of their
attention was devoted to the Dravidian idioms of Southern India, not to
Sanskrit. We have the authority of Friedrich Schlegel for the statement
that before his time there were but two Germans who were known to have
gained a knowledge of the sacred language, the missionary Heinrich Roth
and the Jesuit Hanxleben.[58] Even their work was not published and was
superseded by that of Jones, Colebrooke and others. Most valuable
information on Hindu religion was given by the Dutch preacher Abraham
Roger in his well known book _De Open-Deure tot het Verborgen
Heydendom_, published at Leyden in 1651, two years after the author's
death. This book also gave to the West the first specimen of Sanskrit
literature in the shape of a Dutch version of two hundred maxims of
Bhartrhari, not a direct translation from the Sanskrit, but based on
oral communication imparted by a learned Brahman Padmanaba.[59] As a
rule the rendering is very faithful, sometimes even literal. The maxims
were translated into German by C. Arnold and were published at Nuremberg
in 1663.

This, however, ended the progress of Sanskrit literature in Europe for
the time being. Information came in very slowly. The _Lettres
Edifiantes_ of the Jesuits, and the accounts of travellers like Sonnerat
began to shed additional light on the religious customs of India, but
its sacred language remained a secret. In 1785, Herder wrote that what
Europe knew of Hindu literature was only late legends, that the Sanskrit
language as well as the genuine Veda would probably for a long time
remain unknown.[60] Sir William Jones, however, had founded the Asiatic
Society a year before and the first step towards the discovery of
Sanskrit had really thus been taken.

But let us consider what bearing all this had on German poetry. In this
field the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were desperately dreary.
In the former century the leading thinkers of Germany were absorbed in
theological controversy, while in the next the Thirty Years' War