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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[MAT, 1919.
ides in the kdvyas, an idea which is sometimes found very much elaborated. Thus, in Kiratdrjuniya IV, 14-17 we have an elaborate description of the creepers as dancing women of the woods; with this, we may also compare Kalidasa, Vikramorvasiya, Act II. verse 4. The description of the spring, which comes in connection with the statement that the restoration of the temple was accompJished in the month of Tapasya or Phålguna (February-March), is shorter in length and presents fewer characteristic features :
40. In the season, when the arrows of the god whose body is purified by Hara, increase in their might, as they verily become one with the visible, fresh, blooming blossoms of the asoka, the ketaka, the sinduvdra, the moving atimukta creeper and the madayantika.'
41. In the season, when the solitary, large branches of the nagana are resounding with the music of the swarms of bees delighted by the drinking of honey, when the lovely exuberant rodhra is thickly set with flowers newly bursting forth.'
The most notoworthy point here is the identification of the five kinds of flowers with the fine arrows of the god of love. This idea is frequently met with in the kávyas and still more prominent is the fact that the spring is described as making ready the weapons for Káma. Thus in Kumdrasa bhara III, 27, we have :
सय प्रवालोनमचारुपत्रे नीते समा नवचूतचाणे।
निवेशयामास मधुदिरेफान्नामाक्षराणीव मनोभवस्य । . As the arrow of the fresh mango-blossom with tender sprouts serving as feathers, was made quite ready, Madhu set thereon the dark bees, which were, as it were, the letters of the name of the god of love.'
The same thought is more simply expressed in the verge quoted by Anandavardhana in Dhwany dloka II. 28, (p. 106 of the text in the Kdvyamala ) and in the Sarngadhara Paddhati, No. 3789. The names of the flowers, however, do not wholly agree with those which, according to the familiar idea, are supposed to form the tips of the arrows of Kâma. Probably the author has intentionally chosen other names, because he misplaces the beginning of the spring in the closing part of the Sisirs or the cold season whose last month is the Tapasya or Phâlguna.
What we have said so far is sufficient to establish the fact that Vatsabhatti was acquainted with the rules of Indian poetics and that he tried to satisfy the demands thereof, so that his prasasti, in form as well as in sense, strictly belongs to the domain of Sanskrit artificial compositions. From this we can further deduce, without hesitation, the conclusion that in his time, there existed a considerably large pumber of kdvyas, from whose study he cultivated himself, upon which he drew and with which he tried to compete now and then. The rightness of this supposition is confirmed by many circumstances. Thus, Vatsabhatti was not at all a man to whom we can give the credit of originality; nor can we name bim as a poetic genius capable of giving Dew ideas. He shows the several weaknesses which characterise the poets of the second or third class, who compile their verses laboriously, after the model of the classical great poets. A number of points, which can illustrate this, have been already discussed above, and can be still further multiplied. Thus he uses expletives and particles not rarely, and never minds the fault of tautology, just in order to complete his verse. To the first category belonge prakásam (verse 5), sametya (verses 5 and 15), tatas=fu (verse 22), the abovementioned anta in samudranta (verse 23), and tiranta (verso 7), so also the altogether meaningless prefixes prati and abhi in prativibhdti (verse 3) and abhivibhati (verse 19); so also we meet with quite striking tautologies; e. g. in dhyanaikagraparaih (verse 1), where, however, the synonymous words ekágra and para may perhaps be supposed to be put together in order to make the idea of the complete merging clearer and more emphatic; but in tulyopamanani (vorse 10), it is very difficult even to find an appearance of excuse for the simultaneous use of the two synonymous words. Further, Vatsabbatti commits offences against
