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INTRODUCTION
identification. For the renunciation of the king, there is the Goraksa Kimi agar legend dramatized in Hariliarori hyāya's Bhartrharinirveda, while a lot er reason is given in the rather uoubuzul explanation of the stanza yam cintayami (311). The former states that Bhartrhari's favourite. queen Pingalā committed suicide on hearing false news of her husband's death; while he mourned her, inconsolable, at the crematory the siddha Gorakşanatha restored twenty five Pingalas indistinguishable from each other, thus converting the king to asceticism. The other is even sillier, stanza 311 being uttered by the king in disgust when he finds the fruit of immortality he gives his queen passed on to her paramour; the legend associates Bhartrlari with Vikrama in some versions of the Vetālapaficavimśati and the Simhāsanadvātriņśiki. Both stanza and explanation are very late additions to the śatakatraya complex.
The story given by Merutunga as to Bhartrhari's being the son of a Brāhmin grammarian bv a Sūdra mother seems plausible, for that would qualify our poet to write his verse while excluding him from many of the Brahmanical privileges. Unfortunately, this can be traced in parallel forms such as the Patañjalicaritan [KM 51 ], to show that the grammarian Bhartřhari is meant, the whole story being a saga of the grammarians through Patañjali and Candragcinin. One may point to the two sections of the Sarvadarśanasangrahas named after Pāṇini and Patañjali. The identification of the grammarian Patañjali with the author of the Yogasutras is known though unquestionably false. For our purpose, it suflices to l'efute the general tradition,
5. 3. Thes stanzas. We are driven by all this to draw our conclusion from the stanzas themselves. I should have done this at the very start but for an opinion current among otherwise respectable scholurs ( which included the late V. S. Sukthankar] that all Sanskrit literature is anonymous. Nothing would, on this basis, be deducible from such verses. Others go further, to maintain that the author identifies himself in turn with various types of people, in order to domonstrate the futility of all walks of life, and to induce renunciation. The last view, I hope, has been completely exploded by such texi-cr ticism as has been brought to bear on the MS apparatus, for the v tragytáutilen has unquestionably the thinnest support; the vairagyit stanzas
een to bu am ng the list added to the collection. As for impersonation every auchor must, it be achievos literary greatness, have convinced his reader of the truth of some such penetration into other minds, but there is nothing in our nuclear stanzas to show a deliberate identification by turn. No author can disguise his fundamental training any more than he can write in a language which he was never learned. Looked at from this point of view, the unity of the stauzas is seen to rest essentially upon their touc. What strikes the reader is an acuto observation of human nature, along with tlic distress experienced by a man of letters without secure means of livelihood. The unplaced stal24, as well as most of the contempt slown for the rich in V stanzas clearly reflect this sort of helplessaess. The literary physiognonny of Bhartvhari is then the physiognomy of a whole class which know Sanskrit and experienced the same type of frustration, Drenthe Sriigüra shows
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