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SEPTEMBER, 1913.)
INDIAN INSCRIPTIONS AND THE KAVYA.
245
assertion that verse 31 of the prasasti is an imitation of Pitusa ihara. V. 2-3, appears to me quite undeniable. If we may believe in the traditions which ascribes Ritusaihdra to the author of Meghaddta, then the point overlooked by me, which Prof. Kielhorn has made out, strengthens the probability of the supposition that Kalidasa lived before 472 A. D., which is very significant. In that case, however, it will have to be assumed that Vatsabhatti knew the Ri tusaihdra also.
One of these conclusions, the statement that the Indian artificial poetry had developed itself not after but before the beginning of our era-is confirmed also by references in a literary work which is by all means old. Whosoever goes through the collection of poetic citations from the Mahibháshya, which Professor Kielhorn has brought together Ante, Vol. XIV, p. 326 ff., can not but see that the K ya prospered in Patanjali's times. Many of the verses exhibit metres characteristic of the artificial poetry, such as, Malati, Pramitakshará, Praharshi ni and Vasantatilakd. These verses as well as many others in the heroic Anushtabha-Sloka agree, in point of contents as well as the mode of expressions, not with epic works but with the Court ledoyas. The composition of the Mahabhashya can now indeed no longer be placed with certainty in the middle of the second century before Christ, as was the case generally, up till very recently ; because the uncertainty of the known arguments of Goldstücker and others has become more and more evident with the time.80 In the meanwhile, according to what Prof. Kielhorn in his articlesi
The Grammarian Pâņini' has said about the relation of Bhartsihari and Kasikit to the Mahabhashya, and for reasons of language and style, we cannot establish for Patañjali a later terminus all quem than something like the first century after Christ. Thus the passages from Patañjali show at any rnt, as Kielhorn remarks in Ante, loco citato, that the so called classical poetry is older than it has lately been represented to be.' A further proof for the early growth of the Sanskrit Karya is provided by a Buddhist work, the Buddhacharita of Aśraghosha, whose Chinese translation was prepared between 414-421 A.D. The work is not a Mahdkávya in name only, but is written in the Kavya style, as we may judge from the samples given by Mr. Bendall, sa Mr. Beal the translator of the Chinese version looks upon the Buddhist tradition as right,83 according to which, the author, Asvaghosha, was a contemporary of Kanishka (78 A, D.). Even if we lay aside this difficult question and take our stand on the date of its translation, which is beyond doubt, the work would still possess great worth from the point of view of the history of literature. The composition of the work in question can not be placed in any case later than 350-400 A. D. Even the bare fact that a Buddhist monk, as early as this, thought of writing the Legend of Buddha, according to the rules of the poetic art, establishes a great popularity of the brahmanic artificial poetry and confirms the conclusions, arrived at, above, by the analysis of Harishena's prasasti. A thorough examination of the Buddhacharita, and comparison of its style with that of the older káryas and with the rules of the oldest manual of Rhetorics will, withoat doubt, lead to more definite and more important results.
If one compares the conclusions, set forth in this essay, with the views of other Sanskritists regarding the history of Indian Kavya, it will be found that they are entirely incompatible, especially with those which Professor Max Müller has argued ont in his famous dissertations on the Renaissance of Sanskrit Literature; and thus I am not, in this case, in a position to agree with
* This tradition is, at any rate, older than Vallabhadeva's Subhashitdrali, which belongs probably to the first half of the fifteenth century. In it, are quoted two verses from Ritganhdra, No. 1674 (Ritus. VI, 17) and No. 1678 Ritus. VI, 20) under the same Kalidasaaya. In the note to the first of these, the editors wrongly attribute it to Kumarasamblava VI. 17. The mistake has been rather due to a misprint. Two other verses from Ritusa nkdra have been cited in the same anthology. but without a mention of the particular author. Vallabha has probably taken them from some older work on which the author's name was not given.
In this connection one should notice the quotations from Vol. I, 428, 435, II, 110, III, 143, 338. (Kielhorn's edition of the Badshya.)
According to the communiontion of Pandit N. BhaskariahArya. The Age of Patanjali. Adyar Series No. 1 p. 4, the two old Mes from the South are unfavourable to one, historically important, word, nos contested till now, inasmr ch as they do not read a bat in the well-known passage on Pån. V, 3, 99. Although the treatise mentioned above contains very little else that is noteworthy. still this point requires to be investigated further, especislly as Southern Ms. have not been used for the Bhashya up till now.
* Yachrichten der K igl. Gesellschaft der Wissenschatten Göttingen, 1985, p. 195 ff. *2 Calalone of Budalist Sansk. Mss. p. 82.
Srcrel Boots of the East, Vol. XIX, p. XXX, ff. India, that can it teach u8? p. 231 fr. On the other band, Larsen's views regarding the development of KArya, oompe pretty near to the results given above. As he had studied the injoriptions, it wils but natural that the significance of the Girnar inscription and of Harichopa's grasasti did not escape his observation ; see Indische Altertuigkunde, part II. p. 1159 f., 1159 f.
