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Kavyanusasana Chedi and Mālava, though he writes in his boasting style that Dhārā was sorry that he did not go there. From Chedi, he came to Aņahillapura. He must have come there in the early part of Karna's reign, probably soon after Karna's marriage with Mayaņallā. It may be that he might have written the play to commemorate the event. *
It appears his stay in Aşahillapura was not of such consequence as to deserve mention in his selfeulogistic account. He merely refers to it'as contact with Gurjars on the way. He was disgusted with their speech and with their way of wearing dhoti. His references to Añahillapattana, and to Karna, and his eulogy of the Mahamatya Sampatrkara in the Karnasundari, however, tell a different tale. It might be that because he wrote his Vikra mánkadevacharita in the court of Ahavamalla a rival Chalukya king, he had to make slighting references to the Gurjaras, or it might be that his unchecked arrogance which he reveals in his auto-biographic account met with a check in the court of Anahillapura and that his vanity was wounded. However that may be, the blemishes of speech and dress which Bilhaņa refers to must not be regarded as unreal.
* Mr. Ramlal Modi thinks that the play must have been written not in the time of Karna, but in the early part of Jayasimba's reign, because the plav is not acted in one of Kaina's Daiva temples, but in the Jaipa temple of Sampatakara. This argument, I think, is flimsy, and is based upon an ignorance of the customs of the times. It was an usual thing in those days, for such plays to be acted in Jaina temples on festive occasions; and a foreign poet might very well write a play for the festival in the temple of the prime - minister.
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