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INTRODUCTION the thirteen verses peculiar to the South Indian recension are found in the available portion of his commentary.
In the Prakrit colophon at the end of each Canto explained in the commentary, Kanhadāsa calls himself 'the eighth Rattha of the Śrīkumāras', also called the Kulakumāras, a phrase not intelligible to us. There is no other clue to his date as he does not refer to or quote any previous author or work,
Krşnadāsa seems to be referred to in another commenttary on the Setubandha, the Setutattvacandrikā compiled in Bengal. In Setu 2.1 the ocean is described as the youth of Rāma's expedition; and this has led to a variety of interpre tations. Criticizing one of them, SC says that 'according to some, the childhood of the enterprise is the slaying of Vālin, the youth the crossing of the ocean, and the old age the slaying of Rāvaņa. This explanation is wrong, because a resemblance is sought to be established between the ocean and youth by representing the crossing of the ocean as the youth of the undertaking.' It is noteworthy that Krsņadāsa in his gloss on the verse speaks of the childhood and youth of Rāma's expedition. He says that the period from the alliance with Sugrīva to the ascertainment of Sīta's whereabouts, is, as it were, the childhood of the undertaking; while the period from Rāma's arrival at the seashore to her recovery represents its youth. If the criticism mentioned above is aimed at Krşņadāsa, the latter might be supposed to have written his commentary before the middle of the seventeenth century, which is the approximate date of the Setutattvacapdrikā (see below).' 1 The statement in Extracts 2.1 that Mudamalla is criticized in SC was made before
we had access to Krsnadāsa's commentary. It now appears that the criticism levelled at Krşnadāsa rather than Mudamalla.
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