South Indian Inscriptions

LITERATURE

Svapnadaśānana was judged to be the best. Anthologies contain some verses of Bhīmata, which appear to be of the subhāshita type.¹

Another renowned author of the later period was Rājaśēkhara. In the prologues of his plays as well as in the stray verses collected in Sanskrit anthologies, Rājaśēkhara has given a considerable information about his ancestors who flourished in the Chēdi court. This Brāhmana family hailed from Mahārāshtra.² Vatsagulma, modern Bāsim (properly Vāśīm) in the Akola District of Madhya Pradesh, was probably its original place of habitation.³ This family bore the ancient name of Yāyāvara,⁴ and was noted for its learning as well as poetic ability. Rājaśēkhara mentions, as his ancestors, Akālajalada, Surānanda, Tarala and Kavirāja, all of whom distinguished themselves by their poetic composition.⁵ Akālajalada, the great-grandfather of Rājaśēkhara, probably flourished in circa 850 A.C. He may have been a court-poet of Kōkalla I (circa 850-890 A.C.), whose glorious reign must have attracted learned men, poets and artists from far-off lands. Akālajalada was not the poet’s proper name. It was a sobriquet which he earned by composing an interesting verse containing the word akāla-jalada (an unseasonable cloud).⁶ According to Rājaśēkhara, his works were eagerly studied by later poets. Some of his verses were plagiarised by one Kādambarīrāma, who earned fame by inserting them in his play.⁷
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¹ SM., p. 157.
² M. M. Ghosh has questioned the identification of this Mahārāshtra with the modern country of that name on the ground that Rājaśēkhara has mentioned it as distinct from Vidarbha and Kuntala. See his edition of the Karpūramañjari, p. Ixvi. It may be noted that there were three Mahārāshtra known in ancient times, comprising modern Northern Mahārāshtra, Vidarbha and Kuntala (Southern Mahārāshtra). Rājaśekhara sometimes mentions Mahārāshtra separately from Vidarbha and Kuntala (vide KM., p. 93) and sometimes as including the latter two countries (vide Bālarāmāyana, Act XI, v. 74 and 75). His other arguments that Rājaśēkhara does not mention Mahārāshtra as the country or Prakrit, that he wrote in Śaurasēnī and that he has great praise for Pāñchāla, have little force; for, in the verse referred to, Rājaśēkhara is only quoting the opinion of others (vide tad=uktam in KM., p. 51); if he wrote in Śaurasēnī, that was because he was then at the court of the Pratīhāras; and he has praised Mahārāshtra and Vidarbha also in as high terms. Ghosh comes to the strange conclusion that Rājaśēkhara was not a native of Mahārāshtra, though his ancestors might have come to Madhyadēśa from some place in Mahārāshtra ! His attention is drawn to the passage in the KM., p. 10, which glorifies Vatsagulma in Vidarbha as the pleasure-resort of the god of love. See also the next note.
³ Rājaśēkhara shows a special love for Vatsagulma. This city was formerly the prosperous capital of a branch of the Vākātaka dynasty. Its seems to have retained its importance down to the time of Rāja-śēkhara; for, it gave its name to a particular style. In the Karpūramañjarī, Rājaśēkhara mentions Vachchh ōmi (Sanskrit, Vātsagulmi) as a rīti together with Māgādhī and Pāñchālī. The poet again mentions this place as situated in the Dakshināpatha. The heroine of the Karpūramañjarī was a princess of Vachchhōma. In the KM. (p. 10), Rājaśēkhara states that the mythical Kāvyapurusha married Sahityavidya at Vatsagulma in Vidarbha, which is the pleasure-resort of the god of love. All these references show the poet’s special admiration for the place. It may, therefore, have been his ancestral home.
⁴ The Yāyāvaras are mentioned in the MBH., Ādiparvan, adhyāya II, V. 13, where the commentator Nīlakantha explains the term as meaning ‘a householder living for only one night in a village’. Dēvala divides householders into Śālīna and Yāyāvara. The latter did not accumulate wealth and did not earn their living by teaching, officiating as a priest or accepting gifts as the former did. H. D. L., VoI. II, pp. 641 ff.
⁵ Balaramayana, I, 13.
⁶ The following verse is ascribed to him in the Sārngadharapaddhati The verse appears to be the anyōkti type, and suggests unexpected munificent gifts of a liberal donor which relieved a great distress.
⁷ Cf. SM., p. 46. This Kādambarīrāma may be identical with Kādambarīrāmakrishna, the author of the Aditi- kundalāharana, as suggested by J. B. Chaudhari. See Padyavēnī, p. 83.