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सटीको वृत्तजातिसमुच्चयः [INTRODUCTION his time, which may not have been far removed from that of Hāla, poetry written in Mahārāștri Prākrit was flourishing. It is really very unfortunate that Virahānka has not chosen to illustrate his metres by stanzas from the Prākrit and Apabhramsa poems existing at his time. I have already suggested that Virahanka probably lived in the 9th or the J0th century A.D. or even earlier.34 But the following considerations may permit us to push back his date by a couple of centuries. He must have lived a little after the 6th century A.D. when the Apabhramśa dialects had just begun to rear their heads in the midst of other Prakrits and had begun to attract the attention of even royal poets like Guhasena of Valabhi, who is described as clever in composing poems in Sanskrit, Prākrit and Apabhraíśa languages'.35 He, however, must be ascribed to a period much earlier than the 9th and 10th centuries when these Apabhraíśa and other dialects had already passed into the hands of Jain Jaymen who composed devotional and love lyrics as well as narrative poetry in them.36 This conclusion is supported even by the following considerations which arise as a result of a closer study of the work under consideration :
(i) Predominance of the strophic metres like Dvipadi which sometimes extends over 12 stanzas and the popularity of others like the Rāsaka consisting of several stanzas in different metres whether composed in Prākrit or Apabhramsa, indicates the beginning of lyric poetry in these languages, but the non-emergence of longer narrative poems in them composed by popular poets for devotional or religious purposes.
(ii) Influence of Gātha and Giti in the field of strophic metres, as against Dohā and its derivatives which appear to have entered the field of strophic metres a little latter, is very clearly seen in Virahānka's directions.
(iii) The comparative position of the Mātrā and the Dohā metres in Virahānka's treatment, suggests that the Apabhramśa poets had not yet generally resorted to Dohā in preference to Mātrā in their compositions. Of the two metres which are peculiar to Apabhramśa poetry, Mātrā is the older one and seems to have held the field till the rise of longer
34. See Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. V (New
Series), 1929, p. 35. 35. Compare Indian Antiquery, Vol, X p. 284. . 36. See Introduction to Gathālaksana of Nanditadhya, para 14.
