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10. THE SUDRAVATSA-KATHA
1. The twenty--eighth chapter of Bhoja's Sțngāraprakāśa treats the topic of sending of love-messengers as a part of the treatment of Purvānurāga, the first variety of Vipralambha Sệngāra. Messengers are classified on the various types of their characteristics. Functionally distinguished messengers include Gardner, Vidūşaka, Vita, Pīghamarda etc. As an instance of Pithamarda, serving as a love-messenger, Bhoja mentions Dantaka, who is said to serve Sūdravatsa in a work called Kāmasenā-vipralambha. Raghavan's note on this is as follows:
“The examination of the Kathāsāritsāgara, the Bșhat-kalhāmañjari and the Kathākośa have (sic) not produced any fruits in the matter of identifying at least some version of a story with the heroine called Kāmasenā and a hero cal dravatsa (?) with a Pitha marda-ain named Dantaka'2
Now, we come across several casual literary allusions from the beginning of the eleventh century onwards, to an Apabhramsa romantic tale which relates to the adventures of a prince called Suddaya, i.e. Sūdraka. Moreover, we have several literary compositions in Old Gujarati and Rajasthani, which present different versions of that tale. There is also a Sanskrit recast of the earliest known Gujarati version. The tale continues to live to the present day in folk-literary traditions of Gujarat and Rajasthan. In what follows, I shall first note the early references to the story of Suddavaccha and give information about the literary versions of the tale available in Old Gujarati and Rajasthani. This will be followed by a brief summary of the story as we find it in Bhima's Sadayavatsa-vira-prabandha.
2. Víra, an Apabhraíśa poet of Malwa, enumerates in the Jambūsāmicariya (completed in 1020 A.D.) the following four works of his father, the poet Devadatta3 .
