Book Title: Mahavira Charitam
Author(s): Todarmal Pandit
Publisher: University of Panjab Lahore

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Page 41
________________ INTRODUCTION XXXIX p 165, 1. 9, dinammi, p 200, 1 13 In the pronominal declension the double genitive forms me and maha are used. d The three forms valād eva, p 50, 1 6, nāme tti, p 87, 1 4, and patthede tr, p 160,1 4, deserve consideration e The word apr always appears as vi, even after an anusvāra, where the correct form would be pra f. Among uncommon words may be mentioned ohēramana, nuvadrda, visatta, kandotta, uvvattıda, uvvella, pamhusda, pamhalıda g It is remarkable that none of his three works contains even a single Prakrit stanza. 12. BHAVABHŪTI AND KĀLIDĀSA According to a general tradition of the Pandits the two dramatists were contemporaries, and an anecdote ' is related about Bhavabhūtı having taken his Utt for his opinion to Kälıdāsa, who being occupied at the moment with the game of chess, asked him to read it out. When Bhavabhūtı had finished and asked him what he thought of the play, Kālıdāsa expressed his high appreciation of it, but pointed out that in the verse avrditagata-yāmā rātrur evam vyaramsīt (I 27) the reading evam should better be eva. Though, as we now know, there is no historical basis for this story, • the two dramatists being separated from each other by a long span of time, yet it may be interpreted to mean that Bhavabhūti was an admirer of Kālıdāsa, whose works he might have often read and whom he imitates in a couple of places Thus when Kāmandakī speaks of the love of Sakuntalā for Dusyanta, of Urvasi for Purūruvas, in Māl II. 7/8, or of the story of Sakuntalā in Mal III. 3, Bhavabhūti might have been thinking of Kāli dāsa's dramas Abhyñāna-sakuntala and Vikramorvašī. In Māl., Act IX, Madhava's idea of employing the cloud as a messenger and his address to the cloud in IX. 25, 26 (which remind us of Megh I 9, 10) 18 most probably borrowed from Kālıdāsa's Meghadūta Again, in the same Act (ver ses 29–34), Mādhava's address to the different forest animals puts us in mind of the similar action of the love-lorn Purūruvas in Vikramorvašī, Act IV Besides, I have been able to find out a few identities or at least similarities of expression in the works of the two poets. For instance, gaurī-guroh pāvanāḥ (Mv VII 27) is found in Sale VI. 17b, estarr 1 I have emended the last two Vide notes ? I have made the necessary emendations. I am indebted to Bhandarkar for this story, which he gives in the Preface, P x, to his edition of Mal.

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