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DECEMBER, 1916)
THIRTEEN NEWLY DISCOVERED DRAMAS TO BHASA.
189
THIRTEEN NEWLY DISURED DRAMAS ATTRIBUTED TO BHASA.
BY BHATTANATHA SVAMIN ; KUMBAKONAM. MR T. Ganapati Sastri of Trivandrum has edited a number of Sanskrit dramas and attributed them to the ancient dramatist Bhiga, who is earlier than Kalidasa. The discovery has resulted in drawing the attention of many Sanskritists, one of whom is Prof. Jacobi. Mrichchhakalika, supposed to be one of the best, if not the best, of Sanskrit dramas, is now reduced to an adaptation of one of these dramas. How disappointing it is to be told that a poet praised for his unparalleled originality did nothing more than take an ancient drama and make several additions without much embellishing the original ? Does this not show a hopeless lack of originality of the reviser ? One should not forget, however, that this observation cannot be well established unless Bhâsa's authorship of these dramas is proved beyond doubt.
When we come to that question, what strikes us first is that none of these dramas supplies us with the name of the author. The editor, however, convinces himself that the author of all is no other than Bhasa. He comes to this conclusion on the following grounds:
(1) Several instances show that all these dramas come from the pen of one and the same author. So if we succeed in discovering the author of one of them, we have the author of all.
(2) There is reason to identify one of these dramas with the Svapnavâsavadatta quoted by several authors. Honce if we know the author of Sva pnavasavadatta, we know the author of all these dramas. (3) The verse of Rajalekhara which runs
भासनाटकचक्रेपिच्छेकैः क्षिप्त परीक्षितुम् ।
स्वमवासवदत्तस्य दाहकोभून पावकः ॥ tells us that the author of a number of dramas including the Svapnava savadalla is Bhisa. From this we can conclude that the Charudatta-nataka and its sister dramas must have been written by Bhása, for they must necessarily have been composed by one who wrote Svapnavasavadatta.
So the editor thinks that some, at any rate, of the dramas included in the Bhasanataka-chakra, as it is called by Rajasekhara, have been brought to light now for the first time.
But I am not convinced of Mr. Ganapati Sastri's arguments. Undoubtedly there are many references to a drama called Svapnavâsavadatta. We are thankful to the editor for having collected all those references in his introduction. The point to be considered is whether they are references to the drama now published with the title Svapnavascradatta. A careful examination of two references negatives this fact.
(1) Sarvananda's Tika-sarvasva on Amarakośa refers to a Svapnavåsavadalla. The passage as quoted in the introduction of the Svapnavasavadatta runs as follows:
" स्वदिशमात्मसास्कर्तुमुल्यनस्य पद्मावतीपरिणयोर्थशृङ्गारः स्वमवासवदत्ते । तृतीयस्तस्यैव वासव- ई Frafra Fr: 11"
(Soe Svapna. Intro. p. XXII.) . This is a clear reference to the present drama which has Padmavati's marriage for its plot. But the passage actually found in Sarvananda's work slightly differs from the above. The learned Sastrf himself has undertaken the editing of the valuable work of
