________________ gued these scholars, is also made convincingly clear by the Nandayanti-katha. Raghavan's very sound critical sense, however, is evident from the serious doubt he expressed regarding the hypothesis that the plot of PD. was derived form the story of Samudradatta and Muladeva occurring in Dandin's Avantisundari-katha (Raghavan has referred to the Avantisundari-kathasara, IV, 77-91). He has observed: 'Two general refernces in Abhinavagupta bear on the source of the play, which is, by itself, an interesting question. Abhinavagupta says that the story of Samudradatta is an example of what a Prakarana author takes from the literary production of an earlier author and handles with some innovations. In Dandin's Avantisundari, there is a story of Samudradatta bound up with the character Muladeva, but we cannot, in the present state of our knowledge of the Puspadusitaka, say whether it was based on this version or comprised all the incidents mentioned here. On a fundamental point, the Dandin version says that the tragedy in Samudradatta's relations with Nandayanti was due to his rivalry with the clever. and all powerful Muadeva, that Samudradatta had courted Muladeva's enmity by making love to a courtesan of his and Muladeva had sworn to carry off Samudradatta's wife and marry her; consequently, Samudradatta had married secretly, but Muladeva had contrived to contact her in secret by an underground passage, declared her his wife before the King and got Samudradatta banished on the charge of stealing his wife. The unfortunate lady was determined to commit suicide in the Ganges when a man, who turned out to be her own husband, rescued her'. S. K. De also assumes that the plot of PD. involved secret marriage of Samudradatta and Nandayanti and Sagaradatta's opposition to that marriage : 'A Prakarana in six acts, it (PD.) had for its theme the love-story of a merchant [20]