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taken from earlier sources, it has no nandi in its usual sense. Morcover it has no Prakrit which has been an ubiquitous feature of the classical Sanskrit drama, it has very little dramatic form worth the name. It has very little prose by way of dialogues. It has a string of generally striking poetic verses some of which are from earlier sources and some of which are not traceable. Some of the scholars like S.K.De3 and S.P. Bhattacharya' who bave paid some attention to the play have discussed whether it would be called a chāyānāṭaka.
On account of these peculiarities, Maxmuller had opined that the work was more of an epic than a true drama and that it carries us back to the earlier stage of development of the Indian drama. But the case seems to be contrary to what Maxmuller supposes to be. The stringed verses are of a very striking nature and a result of वैदग्ध्यभणिति and hence they do not seem to be the product of the earlier stage of development. In fact this play scens to have come into existence at a time when the rigours of the classical Sanskrit drama were slackened and the cannon of the prescriptive works of dramaturgy was loosened. So this situation obtained in the second millenium A.D. So it is more plausible to date the play in the second millenium, and it should belong to the medieval times, so to say historically. We shall endeavour to narrow down the span of time of the origin of the Hanumannāṭakam.
As the legend goes the work was composed by the son of the wind (Hanumat) but was cast into the sea by Valmiki who feared that the play would eclipse his own Rāmāyaṇa. Later it was retrieved by the king Bhoja and redacted by Damodara Miśra. In his commentary on the verse incorporating this legend, Mohanadasa 'explains that Hanumat wrote this work and engraved it with his nails on For Private & Personal Use Only
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