________________
( 109 )
seem that the distinguished scholar Weber leans to the theory that we have here an attempt to classify, in order of merit, some of the writers who preceded Bâņa. I can see no grounds for such a supposition, and the particular instance which Weber has in view does not, when closely examined, in any way bear it out. For Bhâsa and Kalidasa are not here compared as rival writers of dramas. If Bana's reference were all that remained of the fame of the prince of Indian poets, we should never have known that he wrote a play.
But, while the list is not in order of merit, it is not necessary to contend, on the other hand, that it is strictly in order of time. We can be certain that the poets referred to lived before, or at the same time with, Båna; but we cannot be certain of more than this. What I wish to emphasise is the internal evidence the verses seem to furnish that they are not the tribute of cold respect, or even of warm though disinterested admiration, for authors, the pride of their time, but already sinking into oblivion to the men of Båna's day. I may be mistaken ; but it appears to me that the passage breathes in every line the impulse of a mighty revival in the last phase of which Båna himself bore part. With his own eyes, so to say, he had seen the fame of other poets go out, as the star of the incomparable author of the Vasavadattâ rose abovo his country's intellectual horizon: he stood near the time when Bhasa won eternal fame by those plays of his--a form of composition unknown before, and best described by an epithet (EUR **) recalling one of their special characteristics: the joy the people took in Kalidasa acted as a deterrent rather than an incentive to one who lived, while as yet the fame of that new poet was yet fresh in the hearts of all men. I shall make my meaning clear if I say that the tone of the passage appears to me to resemble that which the poets who stood nearest our owu Elizabethan writers lored to use of that glorious company, rather than that of a grave deliberate panegyric on the classical ornaments of the long story of a nation's literature.
It is commonly taken for granted that the Vasa va datt 4,* with which this list opens, is the extant romance by Subandhu of that name. This was the opinion of the commentator of that Våsavadattå, sivardma Tripathin, who quotes the present couplet, and refers it expressly to his author. The commentator of the Harsha Charita, who as a rule occupies himself more with verbal explanations than with anything else, does not say anything on the point. Hall expresses no doubt on the subject; though he would also seem to have held, on the ground of internal evidence, that his Subandhu was posterior to Bharabhati,t who it is certain now, must in his turn be placed
• Hall's Introduction to Vásayudatta, p. 9. + Ibid., p. 14.
