Srngaramanjari Katha

Author(s): Bhojdev, Kalpalata K Munshi
Publisher: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan

Page 70

A CRITICAL APPRECIATION OF THE SMK
Guņādhya is interesting. Only three verses of his Brhatkathā are known, but the contents have been fairly preserved in the Brhatkathā-slokasamgraha of Budhasvāmin, the Brhatkathāmañjari of Kşemendra and the Kathāsaritsagara of Somadeva. These three works are in verse, and from them it can be inferred that the Brhatkathā must have been in verse. But Dandin's Kāvyādarsa refers to Brhatkathā as prose romance.49 This reference to Guņādhya among the prose writers in this romance confirms Dandin's statement, which implies and supports the view of scholars that the Brhat kathā was in prose. 50
The inclusion of Bhäsa among the prose writers is as interesting as it is important. The question which it raises is whether Bhāsa wrote any prose work at all. Now, if Bhoja had in mind the dramas attributed to Bhāsa, this reference could only be to the prose passages in them. But it would be rather unnatural to include a dramatist among prose writers. Moreover, the issue is complicated by another subsequent reference where Bhäsa is mentioned among those poets who have indulged in autobiographical, if not self-adulatory writing. As is well-known, however, the dramas are totally silent about their author. Therefore there are two possible explanations; either (1) the dramas are recasts of original Bhāsa plays in which the Prastāvanā might have contained personal information regarding the author or (2) SMK had some other prose (?) work of Bhāsa in mind. It is likely that Bhāsa may have written in prose.
Bhavabhūti has been mentioned as a poet who has written about himself.
Kāmaśāstra and the Alainkārasõstra
As regards the present work special reference should be made to Bhoja's indebtedness to the sciences of Erotics and Poetics. For the theme of the courtesan's love offers a chance to the author to analyse the heroes, the heroines, their attachments and states of love, and the different characters that figured in their lives as accomplices or adversaries. These topics form the stock-in-trade of both these sciences and hence the author draws upon them.
Speaking of the Kāmaśāstra first, Bhoja has mentioned only one authority in the field. That is Dattaka. The reference is as follows: faqat garatutarafta
arfora: 1 (p. 19). In Vätsyāyana's Kāmasūtra we read that śvetaketu's treatise on this subject was condensed to seven chapters by Pañcālabābhravya.51 49. I, 38 FT FE TOTT: ET TEI
भतभाषामयीं प्राहरभ्दूतार्थां बहत्कथाम् ।। 50. Keith, A History of Sanskrit Literature, (1941), p. 268. Also Dasgupta and De,
A History of Sanskrit Literature, Vol. I, pp. 92-100, 694. 51. I, 1-10.