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74
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[MARCH, 1873.
the age of Râma's incarnation lasted. And | Das'arûpaka ;§ and this commentary in its secondly and this is of greater importance I have not been able to discover the stanza after looking through the whole of the drama for it, and after having once before read it. At present, therefore, we cannot in this investigation press to our aid the mention of Harsha by Jayadeva.
earlier pages abounds with quotations from the Venisan hâra, which must, therefore, at that time have been old enough to be regarded as fit for quotation. Hence it would seem to result that the date of the migration of Bhatta Nârâyana must be put back a century or so; but this still, only on the hypothesis that this Bhatta Nârâyana is identical with the author of the Venisan hâra. If so, and again taking Bâbu Rajendralâla's identification of the poet Śrî Harsha to be correct, it will follow that the Bâbu's conclusion as thus adjusted will be supported by the two different lines of argument suggested in my letter.
The date of Sri Harsha is casually alluded to in Professor Cowell's Preface to Mr. Palmer Boyd's Translation of the Nâgânanda Nâṭaka. But the Professor, after first remarking that his age is uncertain, simply refers to the conjecture of Babu Rajendralâla Mitra upon it, and then adds" But I find, from a notice in the first number of the Indian Antiquary, that Dr. Bühler of Bombay has recently fixed his date. in the twelfth century." Having regard to what has been said above on this point, this remark of Professor Cowell's cannot, of course, be considered satisfactory. Bâbu Rajendralâla identifies this Śri Harsha with the Śrî Harsha who went over to the court of Ádisûra, in company with others, one of whom was Bhatta Nârâyana, the author of the Venîsanhâra Nataka. But the Bâbu adds that "this assumption, probable as it may appear, is, it must be admitted, founded entirely upon presumptive evidence, and must await future more satisfactory research for confirmation." The period of this migration of Harsha and Nârâyana is fixed by Babu Rajendralâla in the middle of the tenth century-by a calculation, however, which admittedly can give a result but roughly correct. But it seems clear that, if the Bhatta Nârâyana, who was received at his palace by king Ádisûra, was the author of the Venîsanhâra, the date fixed by Babu Rajendralâla for his migration must undergo some modification. For about the middle of the tenth century, if not earlier, lived Dhanika, the author of the commentary on the
The net result of this investigation may be thus stated:-The Jaina biographer's account, albeit it has some points in its favour, cannot be much trusted. On the other hand, the fact of the Naishadhiya being quoted in a work which, at the latest, dates from the beginning of the eleventh century; the fact of the work of a poet, probably contemporaneous with Śrî Harsha, being quoted in a work dating from a still earlier period; the fact of an exceedingly well-known and well-informed writer of the fourteenth century making Śrî Harsha the contemporary of a philosopher who flourished some six centuries or more before his time:these facts indicate a period which is about two centuries earlier than the period to which the Harsha Prabandha, assigns the subject of its narrative. And although the considerations here adduced against Rajasekhara's statement do not fix with any precision the date towards which they seem to point, still they are of value, at least to this extent that they show pretty clearly that the question of the date at which Sri Harsha flourished is not one which can be regarded as finally settled even by the circumstantial narrative of the Harsha Prabandha.
*See page 12.
Journal of the A. S. of Bengal, No. III., 1864, p. 326,alluded to by Prof. Cowell.
Ibid., p 327.
See Hall's Das'arúpa, Pref. pp. 2, 3,-with which should
be coupled Hall's Vasavadatta, Pref. p. 50 addendum to p. 9, notes 1. 12.
See pp. 16, 18, 19, &c., and see Wilson's remarks in his Hindu Theatre.
See Babu Rajendralala's paper above referred to, p. 326.
