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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(June, 1907.
II. - The Author, his time, and his work. The name of the author is Padmagupta : 80 he is called in the colophon to the first sarga of the Navasdhasdnkacharita in the manuscript before us, in the first of the four tail verses which are attached to the poem :
Etad Dinitrakumudadyuti Padmaguptah
árí Sindhurdjanri pates charitasi babandha 11 in the Daéarúpa (ed. Hall, p. 96); and in the Subhashitávali under No. 168, another Dame and as it appears the more usual name of Padmagupta, is Parimala. He is almost always called so in the sarga signatures of the manuscript before us; also, for example, in the Ganaratnamahodadhi, p. 117.
Padmagupta's father was called Mrigankagupta, as given in the colophon to the first sarga.
The period of Padmagupta is easily fixed. Padmayapta composed the Mahâkávya Navasthard akacharita, which treats of the winning of the snake-king's daughter Sasiprabha (Sasiprabhdldbhaḥ), for the glorification of his patron-king Sindhuraja alias Navas&hasanka, This is clearly and distinctly expressed in the concluding versus of the poem - compare the passage quoted. Who was this king Sindbarája, however? Where did he rule? This point is explained for us in the first sarga, especially in these two verse -
Sarasati kalpalatai kakandan vanddmahe Vakpatirdjadevam yasya prasddddvayamapyamutra kavindrachar ņe pathi sanchardmah 1 611 divai yiydsurmam odchi mudrdmadatta ydin Vdk patirjadevah tasy dnujan má kavibandharasya
bhinatti tái samprati Sindhur dja* 117 11 Padmagupta was therefore court-poet to Vakpatirajadeva, a friend of poets (kavibandhava ), and after his death, court-poet to Sindhurâja, who is called a younger brother (anujanman ) of Vakpatirája. Now we proceed to find Sindhura ja described as Avantipati, Malavaminaketana, Paramaravanabaketu, &c., thus it appears quite certain that, in Vákpatirâja and Sindhuraja, we have two well-known kings of MAlava, belonging to the dynasty of the Paramaras, The time of the rule of these kings is ascertained pretty closely from inscriptions, and from that the date of Padmagupts may be fixed. The period of the literary activity of Padmagupta falls in the last quarter of the tenth and the beginning of the eleventh century A. D.
This story of the colobrated king Sindhuraja, which is beautiful as a full-blown white lotus, Padmagupta bu composed.
. We praise the one (incomparable) root of the wishing tree of the Sarasvatl, king VA patirkja, by whose gree we also wander in the path trodden by the poet princes.
The seal, which Vikpatirsja pat upon my song, when he entered heaven (by his death), the place and allowance of a court poet I lost, and ceased to compose poetry: Now Sindhurja, brother of that friend of poeta, freos me.
Conf. Ind. Ant. Vol. VI. p. 48 ff., erpecially p. 51 ff.; and Vol. XIV. p. 159 ff. Beszenberger's Beiträge rur Kunde der indogerman, Sprachen, IV. 71 ff. Sindhurija ww the son of slyaka (As mentioned in the Navasdhasánkacharita, 8, 77; 11, 85; 13, 69 ) and father of the renowned Bhoja of Dhari.
• The period of Padmagupta is first correotly fixed by Zacharias in the artiole: Sanskrit vichchhitti, Cosmetic, * supplement to the science in Bezsenberger's Beitragen XIII., 99; Anm. 2. It points out also that Padmagupta Was contemporary (it is added : and an intimate fellow-countryman) of Dhanapals, the author of the Paiyalachchhi. On Dhanspls, conf. Bühler, ut opra, IV. 70 ff., and in the Siteungeberichten der Phil..hist. Cl. der K. Akad. der Wissenschaften nu Wien, 1882, p. 568 4.
