North Indian Inscriptions

LITERARY HISTORY

       2. “The house interior with windows shut, fire, the rays of the sun, heavy garments (and) women possessed of youth become enjoyable to the people in this season.
       3. Not sandal cool with the rays of the moon, not the terrace of a mansion beautiful in consequence of the autumnal moon, not winds chilly with thick frost, now gladden the mind of the people.”

       Here doubtless hutāśanō bhānumatō gabhastayaḥ and na chandanaṁ Chandra-marīchi-śītalaṁ and na harmya-pṛishṭhaṁ of these verses correspond to bhāskar-āṁśu-vahni-pratāpa and chandrāṁśu-harmya-tala-chandana . . . upabhōga-rahitē of the inscription. And, perhaps, if we turn to the Ṛitusaṁhāra, Canto I, verse 8, chandana . . . vyajana . . . hārayashṭi of the same easily answers to chandana-tālavṛinta-hār-ōpabhōga-rahitē of the Mandasōr praśasti. This common group of ideas indicates that Vatsabhaṭṭi is conversant not only with the Mēghadūta but also with the Ṛitusaṁhāra of Kālidāsa.

        But there is another stanza, namely, verse 32, which is also devoted to the description of the Winter Season. No similarity of thought or expression has been pointed out between it and the Ṛitusaṁhāra, or, for the matter of that, any other poem. Again, there are two stanzas in Vatsabhaṭṭi’s composition, namely, verses 40-41 which are descriptive of the Spring. No idea or form of expression comprised in them has been traced in the composition of any poet so as to establish the indebtedness of the one to the other. The same remark holds good in the case of other verses also. There are thus, verses which describe the lakes of Daśapura, the Guild of silk-weavers and its distinguished members, the ruler of Daśapura and his suzerain, and the temple of the Sun, built and rebuilt. They are replete with a rush of images and turns of expression. It is true that in most cases they have not at all been characterised by any felicitous grace such as might be expected of a master poet. Nevertheless, the impression is created on the mind that he must have borrowed many of them from the works extant in his time. The conclusion is thus almost irresistible that there was a considerable number of Kāvyas which were known when Vatsabhaṭṭi lived and wrote, upon which hedrew as he did upon the Mēghadūta and the Ṛitusaṁhāra, but which have now been lost to us.¹

        Let us now try and appraise the poetic merit of Vatsabhaṭṭi’s composition. Bühler seems to be quite right in saying that “Vatsabhaṭṭi was not at all a man to whom we can give the credit of originality; nor can we name him as a poetic genius capable of giving new ideas. He shows the several weaknesses which characterise the poets of the second or third class, who compile their verses laboriously, after the model of the classical great poets.” That Bühler’s decision is on the whole correct may be seen from the rather free use of expletives and particles, the pretty frequent recurrence of the fault of tautology, the employment of words in their usual senses, the absence or omission of any connection between the qualifying and qualified parts of a sentence and many other faults too numerous to mention. We will take some of the stanzas one after another and try to point out a few of these faults. Thus, stanza 2 has yasya in line 1, which is apparently a possessive pronoun without a noun indicating possession. When we read the stanza and come to this yasya, the question arises yasya kiṁ ? No reply is furnished. Line 1 of stanza 3 has prativibhāti of which the prefix prati is meaningless. So also is su of su-
_________________________________________________________

¹ In regards to Vatsabhaṭṭi, B. C. Mazumdar makes the following remarks in JRAS., 1904, p. 397:
“The text of the Mandasōr stone inscription in 472 A.D. was composed by a poet named Vatsabhaṭṭi . . . There is a striking resemblance between stanzas 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 in the inscription and the description of Śarat in the 2nd canto of Bhaṭṭi. That the name of the poet is Vasta-bhaṭṭi, that the date 472 is the date when Dharasena I was reigning as a Valabhī-Rājā, that the Mandasōr text was composed in praise of Kumāra Gupta, whose Sēnāpati and feudatory this Dharasena was, are acknowledged facts. If we accept Vatsabhaṭṭi to be the author of Bhaṭṭikāvya, many things which we cannot otherwise explain can be explained. It explains the name of the kāvya; it explains why some forms of rhetoric, popular during the days of Bhāravi and Daṇḍin are not found in this kāvya; and it explains also why the story of Rāma, as it is given in the poem, does not include the later portion.”