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the rocks. To allay the fears of Valmiki who thought that it would be an excellent work which would throw his Rāmāyaṇa into oblivion Hanumat threw it into the sea and after many ages it was retrieved by his avatara Bhoja with the help of fishermen.
Bhojaprabandha has one more anecdote to recount. Once some fishermen found an engraved stone in the river Narmada and brought it to Bhoja. Bhoja recognised it to be the work of Hanumat. He then got it completed by his courtpoet. In the Mahānāṭaka version, at the end of the every act, it is stated that the 'work of Hanumat was rescued by Vikrama and then it was redacted with proper context by Madhusudana (Sandarbhya Sajjikṛte).9
8
From these legendary accounts it emerges that certain portion was a sort of a nucleus and then either Madhusudana Miśra or Damodara Miśra redacted it. As S.K.De puts it 'the three versions of the story certainly suggest the redaction of an old anonymous work or at best the writing of a new work with the embodiment of old matter'.10 And S.P. Bhattacharya interprets the legend, it is not at all strange that such a work should be associated in critical tradition with the name of king Bhoja of Dhārā, the author of Śṛṁgāraprakāśa, a greater name than of whom it is difficult to mention amongst the collectors of precious literary gems and of Hanumat-The monkey-warrior well-known for his devotional fervour."
So from this chaf of legendary accounts, a grain of historical truth that the Hanumannaṭaka acquired the present shape, more or less in the days of Bhoja who flourished in the 11th century A.D. can be obtained. It is not unlikely that the play has gone on acquiring some more verses from the different later-day sources.
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