काव्यमीमांसा (महाकवि राजशेखर - कवि-रहस्य एवं देश-विभाग सटीक)

INTRODUCTION. XXIII
Mr. K. P. Jayaswal disagrees¹ with the above and points out
that the word Kārttikeya goes with the word Nagara, and adds
that "no poet would have mentioned so irreverently about Kumā-
ragupta's own mother to him."
Against this, it may be pointed out that the verse does not
show any irreverence on the part of the poet whose business
obviously is to eulogise his patron king Kumāragupta or Skanda-
gupta of the Gupta dynasty. For, the weakness of Rāmagupta
was already made known by Candragupta, also by Dhruvadevi
who discarded her worthless husband and married his brother.
Moreover, the descendants of the Gupta dynasty out of disrespect
for Rāmagupta never mentioned him in the inscriptions as one of
their ancestors. Dr. D. R. Bhandarkar who discussed the question
later on,² is disposed to agree with Mr. Jayaswal in considering
the word Kārttikeyanagara as the name of a town, and identified
it with the ancient village of Vaijanātha in Almora District U. P.
on the authority of the Pāṇḍukeśvara copper plate and the Tāle-
śvara charters.³ Dr. Bhandarkar believes, however, that the
verse is addressed to Candragupta, though he is not named
expressly therein.
If this position is accepted, Mr. Jayaswal's objection of
showing irreverence to Kumāragupta's mother or Dhruvadevi is
set at rest. Prof. V. V. Mirashi,⁴ however, remarks that the
view held by Dr. Bhandarkar is hardly convincing, because the
verse quoted here is a Muktaka or a detached stanza which should
not only be complete in itself but also contain the name of the king
addressed to. He, thus, commits the same mistake as Prof. Altekar,
and takes the word Kārttikeya in the vocative, but advances the
new theory that the word stands for the king Mahīpāla of the
Gurjara Pratīhāra dynasty, the patron of Rājaśekhara. In support
of this, he further adds that Kṣemīśvara in the Bharatavākya of
his drama Caṇḍakauśika similarly calls his patron Mahīpāla as

1. J. B. O. R. S. Vol. XVIII, p. 20.
2. Malaviya Commemoration Volume. p. 194.
3. I. A. XXV. 178, and E. I. Vol. XIII, pp. 115-118.
4. I. A. 1932, p. 201.