Setubandha

Author(s): Krishnakant Handiqui
Publisher: Prakrit Text Society Ahmedabad

Page 31

INTRODUCTION
Here, by a kind of word-play common in Kāvya poetry, the court panegyrist makes a comparison between Yasovarman and Pravarasena. The former is also pravarasena 'one that has an excellent army' ; but while he built a bridge of piety (dharmasetu) consisting of his religious foundations, the other Pravarasena made only a prākstasetu, which at first sight means an ordinary bridge, but really means the Setukāvya composed in Prāksta. The fact that a distinguished king like Yaśovarman, the founder of Yasodharapura, the first capital of Cambodia,' is compared with Pravarasena shows the extent of the Indian king's fame as a poet in cultured circles in South-East Asia.
It is not very easy to determine the identity of Pravarasena, as several kings of that name are known to Indian history. Of these we may eliminate Pravarasena I and II of Kashmir whose reigns are included in Kalhaņa's Rajatarangini.
The real name of the first was Śreşthasena who was known also as Pravarasena and Juñjina. The second was his grandson and a much more important ruler whose career is treated at length in Kalhaņa's Chronicle (3.106-378). He has been assinged to the second half of the sixth century A.D.; and is said to have introduced the art of constructing bridges of boats (nausetu) by having a great bridge of this type built over the Vitastā (3.354). The Rajatarangini, however, does not attribute any literary activity to Pravarasena ; and there appear to be no valid grounds for supposing, as is sometimes done, that he was the "author or patron' of the Setubandha 3 It is well-known that Kalhana, while describing political events, occasionally gives valuable information about contemporary writers as well as the literary
1 Coedès, The Indianized States of Southeast Asia, p. 111 ff. Honolulu, 1968. 2 Rājatarangini 3,97, ed. Stein. 3 Keith, A History of Sanskrit Literature, p. 97.