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49
So we can tentatively endorse the upper limit of the play Hanumannātakam as the 10th century A.D.
Further it is to be noted that the play Hanumannātakam devotes one entire act i.e. VIII act to the episode in which Angada goes as a messenger of Rāma to the assembly of Rāvana and very hot exchanges take place between Angada and Rāvaņa. Now this act has a close resemblance to the Dūtāngadam a one-act-play, thematically but there are centain verses which are also found in the Dūtāngadam. Dūtāngadam is also culpable of borrowing the verses from its preceding sources, but the Hanumannāțakam is a wholesale borrower. And the verses found in the Hanumannātakam in the eighth act are also found in the assembly-scene of the Dūtārgadam, which has elicited a high encomium from his junior contemporery Someśvara, who stated
सुभटेन पदन्यासः सः कोऽपि समितौ कृतः । येनाधूनापि धीराणां रोमाञ्चो नापचीयते ॥
(Kirtikaumudi 1-24) In the assembly Subhata planted his foot (arranged his words) in such a way that even now the horripilation on the part of the brave people (also learned people) does not subside.
The verse, by way of pun, clearly alludes to the Dūtārgada play and the remarkable assembly scene in the Rāvana's Lankā.
Subhata, the playwright of the Dūtāngadam was connected with the literary circle of Vastupāla, a minister of the king Viradhavala, a feudatory of the king Bhimadeva II of Caulukya dynasty of Anhilvad Pātan, in the first half of the 13th century A.D.
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