महावीरचरितम् (महाकवि भवभूति - वीररस-प्रधान रामकथा नाटक सम्पूर्ण ७ अङ्क सटीक)

Introduction [xlii]

manuscript. A solitary manuscript, Bd, of the Uttara-Rāma gives Bhava-
bhūti's original name as Śilakaṇṭha instead of Śrīkaṇṭha; and the oldest
extant manuscript of the Mālatī-Mādhava (of A. D. 1156; cp. p. xxxvi, above)
says, after the colophon to act x, kṛtir iyam mahāva(ka)ver Bhūgarbhasya.
Is Bhūgarbha still another alias of Bhavabhūti? Perhaps all this confusion
means merely that the name of our poet was not so well and so widely
known as we might like to think.¹
Bhavabhūti and Kumārila were both Southerners or Dākshiṇātyas.
It is probable that they were nearly contemporaries (Kumārila's time is
put as 700–750²). And Bhavabhūti does use a technical term or two of
the Mīmāṅsā (so arthavāda at Uttara-Rāma, i. 39⁵). But there do not seem
to be any cogent reasons for an inference that Bhavabhūti was a direct
pupil of the famous Mīmāṅsā teacher Kumārila.
10. Bhavabhūti certainly earlier than Rājaśekhara (about 900).—
The earliest unmistakable reference to Bhavabhūti ³ occurs in Rājaśekhara.
In his play, the Bāla-Rāmāyaṇa, i. 16, he pays a handsome compliment to
Bhavabhūti, and incidentally to himself, as follows:
He who was formerly known as the poet Vālmīki, and who subse-
quently assumed on earth the form of Bhartṛmeṇṭha, and who
appeared once again in the person of Bhavabhūti,—that same
[Vālmīki] is existing now as Rājaśekhara.⁴
The whole tenor of the stanza makes it certain that Rājaśekhara has in
mind no other Bhavabhūti than the one who dramatized the Rāmāyaṇa,
that is to say, our Bhavabhūti. And in order that the reincarnation may
be poetically plausible, we must of course assume that Bhavabhūti had been
dead for some time before Rājaśekhara was born.
But there are further data confirming Bhavabhūti's priority to Rāja-
śekhara. That the latter imitated Bhavabhūti is shown by Professor
V. S. Apte.⁵ And among his dramatic devices derived from Bhavabhūti are
pictures (Bāla-Rāmāyaṇa, act iv), play-within-play (ibid., act iii), a pupil
wandering in search of instruction (ibid., interlude to act iv), and so on.
In the Bāla-Rāmāyaṇa, iv. 41⁷, Rājaśekhara actually mentions, though
with a skilful double meaning, Bhavabhūti's Mahāvīra-charita.
In all his four extant plays Rājaśekhara mentions the fact that he was

---

Footnotes:

¹ And it is in this way perhaps that we have to explain the reference Mālatīmādhavasya in Jalhaṇa's anthology; see below, § 15.
² See Professor Pathak's paper in the JBBRAS, vol. xviii, pp. 213–38.
³ Of later references there are many. The more important ones may be found together in Appendix 2.
⁴ See Konow and Lanman's Karpūra-mañjarī, Harvard Oriental Series, vol. iv, p. 187.
⁵ In an extremely rare tract. See Konow, l. c., p. 187.