Of rewards or compensations given to the earlier Japanese authors there is no record. The national treasury does not appear to have been utilized as in China and Assyria. It is possible that the dramatists may have secured some share of the stage receipts, but it is probable that the other authors must have contented themselves with such prestige or honors as came to them from the readers of, or the listeners to, their compositions. =India.=--In India, the typical early literature is the myth. There is no national epic in the Greek use of the term, in which are described the doings of heroic men. The literary productions are the work of poets whose imagination has been impressed with the immensity and with the mystery of the universe, and whose poetic fancies take the form of visions. These fancies or visions are concerned with the doings of the gods, while man plays but a small part in the narrative. Sanscrit literature is said to date back to the fifteenth century B.C. The written characters have an origin common with that of the Greek letters. The oldest existing monuments of Indian script are the edicts of the King Açoka, cut into the stone at Girnar and elsewhere “so that they might endure for ever”. They date back to the third century B.C. The first literary period of India presents the poetry of the _Vedas_, the sacred scriptures of the Sanscrit peoples. The hymns and invocations comprising the _Vedas_ are supposed to have been collected about 1000 B.C. This is the date that has by many authorities been accepted for the collecting of the Homeric poems, and corresponds nearly with the time fixed for the writing of the Chinese _Book of the Metamorphoses_. It also tallies with the period to which is ascribed the production of the Persian _Zend-Avesta_. The term _Veda_ means knowledge, or sacred knowledge. The collection of the _Vedas_ comprises four divisions. The _Rig-Veda_, or _Veda of Praises or Hymns_; the _Sama-Veda_, or _Veda of Chants or Tunes_; the _Yajur-Veda_, or _Veda of Prayers_; and the _Atharva-Veda_, or _Brahma-Veda_. The second literary period, beginning about the fifth century B.C., is that of the _Folk-Songs_, in which the myth becomes legend, and the gods, approaching a little closer to the earth, assume more nearly the character of heroes. The third period is that of the classic poets, whose productions in lyric and dramatic poetry are ranked with the great works of literature of the world. This period appears to have reached its height of productiveness between the sixth and tenth centuries of our era. The earliest prose works are the theological writings of the Brahmanic priests, which take the form of commentaries on the _Vedas_, and which elucidate the sacred texts, principally from a sacrificial point of view. The production of these theological commentaries is supposed to date back to the seventh or sixth century B.C.