________________
( 123 )
of Sanskrit literature, shall find anything in the considerations I have urged in this paper to lead him to regard, with me, the undeniably close connexion, which he has the merit of having established between these two poems, as only another illustration of the fact that the brother poets of the golden age of letters in India, like the great dramatists of Greece, did not disdain to borrow in substance their plots from a common source. I venture also to think, though here there may be more reason for doubt, that the almost verbal coincidences which Telang has singled out go to show that the Pârvatspariņaya was written while as yet the fame of the Kumarasambhava had not overshadowed the common original of the two works in other words, that Bâņa and Kalidasa were almost if not altogether contemporaries.
Pandit Durga Prasada informs me that in a commentary by GuRavina ya gani on the Nalachampú, the following passage occurs in the sixth uchchhvâsa :
तदाह मुकुटताडितकनाटके बाण: ॥
आशाःप्रोझितदिग्गजा इव गुहाः प्रध्वस्तसिंहा इव द्रोण्यः कृत्तमहाद्रुमा इव भुवः प्रोत्खातशैला इव | बिभ्राणाः क्षयकालरिक्तसकलत्रैलोक्यकष्टां दशां
जाताः क्षीणमहारथाः कुरुपतेर्देवस्य शून्याः सभाः ।। From this it would appear that a play by Bâņa, called M u ku t at û dita ka, may be still in existence.
Lastly, there is a statement in the Kavya-Prakaśa to the effect 'that for oue of his works Bâņa got from king Harsha neither fame, nor divine favour, but a third 'fruit' of poetry, namely, money; and on this ground Hall, followed by Bühler, would ascribe the Ratnávali, which professes to be the work of a king Harsha, to Bâņa. The hypothesis, it will be noticed, is a double one-first, that the statement in the KâryaPrakása refers to the Ratnâvali; and, secondly, that the statement is to be accepted. There appears to be a consensus of authority among the commentators of the Kavya-Prakasa as to the former point; a close comparison of the Ratna valî with Bâma's other work would probably be conclusive as to the latter.
Is it possible to form any conjecture as to what it was which, in the Oth-7th century, gave the impulse to the great burst of song,' the memory of which has never died out of the literary consciousness of the learned among the Hindus? Here I approach ground strewed with the ashes of smouldering fires and will walk warily. I have indeed only one argument to offer in this controversy : and will premise it with the remark that the most ardent patriotism need not, as it should not, make a Hindu scholar resolved to shut his eyes to anything tending to show that, notably at this time, some of his country's poets
