example of the futility of citing by pages is seen in Ghāṭe's edition of this
play (Nagpur, 1895). Here the pagination begins anew in one and the
same volume no less than seven times: namely, for preface (1–2), intro-
duction (1–12), text (1–192), translation (1–60), notes (1–51), glossary (1–8),
and corrections (1–3), to say nothing of two sequences without pagination.
Thus for example there are (if we disregard the differences of Arabic,
Roman, and Nāgarī numbers) two pages for every page numbered ‘60’
or less, three pages numbered ‘51’, four pages numbered ‘12’, five pages
numbered ‘8’, and seven pages numbered ‘2’. In Kāḷe's Śākuntala, Bombay,
1898, there are no less than ten different sequences of pages! two sequences
are without pagination, and eight sequences begin with page 1. Multiple
sequences of pagination are very frequently found in books printed in
India, and I call upon Hindu editors to recognize the inconvenience thereby
occasioned, and to exclude such sequences from the works which they edit.
Combinations of bad system and systemlessness.—These need hardly
be described except to show the bewildering perplexities that result. Of
these an example or two.
The Mṛichchhakaṭika of Calcutta, 1829, gives in the headlines the name
of the play (343 times repeated, but with no indication of the act!) and the
page-numbers. There is no numbering of the stanzas and none of the
prose-lines. Stenzler's edition of Bonn, 1847, gives in the headlines
the number of the act and the page-numbers, and every fifth page-line
is indicated by a marginal number. Lassen's Prākrit grammar refers to
the Calcutta edition. In order that students may use Lassen's book with
Stenzler's text, Stenzler puts the Calcutta page-numbers in his margins.
The general effect is confusing, and the confusion is aggravated by the
numbers at the end of every speech (not line) in Prākrit (not Sanskrit)
counted from the top of the page! Böhtlingk's translation of this play
gives no help for finding a desired passage except the number of the act at
the beginning of each act. In order to use it with reasonable facility,
I had to write the number of the act on the outer corner of the uneven
pages, and the number of the stanza in the margin.
Goḍabole's Mṛichchhakaṭika of Bombay, 1896, gives the act-number in
the headlines. It numbers the stanzas from the beginning of each act,
and gives these numbers between double verticals at the end of each
stanza. But it also gives a number between European parentheses at the
end of each speech in Prākrit (not Sanskrit) for reference to the explanation
at the foot of the page. This double numbering is, to use an English
nyāya, like having a big hole for the big cat and a little hole for the
kitten. Moreover, it gives a marginal numbering of the lines counted
(without distinction of prose and verse or of Prākrit and Sanskrit) from

xxvii] Proposed by the General Editor of this Series
the beginning of the act.—Now observe the result. A prose-passage may
be cited, if in Sanskrit, by page and by line (the line you must count for
yourself), or by act and marginal line-number; if in Prākrit, by either of
these methods or else by act and Prākrit speech-number. For metrical
passages take the words kukkehiṁ kukkīhiṁ a bukkaante as an example.
These may be cited as Mṛichchhakaṭika, ed. Goḍabole, Bombay, 1896,
p. 62, l. 3; or as ditto, act i, line 556; or as ditto, act i, stanza 52ᶜ. But
this stanza is actually numbered as ‘(46) || 52 ||’, because, being a Prākrit
speech, the number 46 is given for reference to the explanation. And even
the number 46 is an abbreviation (the common one) for 146, so that
stanza 41 on page 48 (an earlier page!) is numbered as ‘(91) || 41 ||’. The
general appearance of the text is further marred by excessively frequent
Nāgarī numbers referring to the variants.
No one can comprehend all these complexities at a glance. They require
careful study. But needless complexities are not worth careful study.
Moreover, one writer will cite a line in one way and another writer in
another. The upshot of it all is—baffling confusion! In closing, I beg the
reader to remember that these inconveniences are mentioned, not in order
to discredit the past work of honoured scholars, but rather in order to
persuade scholars to avoid them in their future work.
C. R. LANMAN.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY,
June 18, 1914.

इस पृष्ठ पर कोई पाठ्य सामग्री (text) उपलब्ध नहीं है। यह पृष्ठ रिक्त (blank page) है।

PREFACE
<span style="font-size: larger;">I</span><span style="font-size: smaller;">T</span> is now just a century and a quarter since Sir William Jones
published, in 1789, his translation of Kālidāsa's Śākuntala, and thereby
gave to the western world its first knowledge of the dramatic literature
of the Hindus. During these hundred and twenty-five years the Śākuntala
has been edited some thirty times, and there are over fifty translations in
as many as thirteen European tongues, to say nothing of translations into
the vernaculars of India. Its own intrinsic merits have won for it, in the
land of its birth, the title of a masterpiece, not only of Kālidāsa's plays, but
even of the Indian literature. And on the strength of these merits, and in
part perhaps on account of Goethe's lavish praise, this title has been
recognized in the Occident, and without demur.
The Hindus, on other hand, hold that our present play, Rāma's
Later History or Uttara-Rāma-charita, the masterpiece of Bhavabhūti,
surpasses in some respects even the Śākuntala. Almost a hundred years
ago, in 1827, Horace Hayman Wilson introduced it to western readers by
giving a very free version of it in his Hindu Theatre. But strangely
enough, in all this time, not a single edition of the play has appeared in the
Occident, nor even a translation that is both adequate and now obtainable.
Félix Nève's French version, long out of print, was issued in 1880. The
English version of Charles H. Tawney was twice printed, in 1871 and 1874,
but in distant Calcutta and in scant supply.
In India the Uttara-Rāma-charita is placed in the hands of almost
every college student, and he admires it and loves it ever after. It becomes
a part of his experience, 'revealing new and newer charms every moment.'¹
So at least it has been with me ever since 1899, when I made my first
acquaintance with the play. And it is as a partial return for the many
happy hours that I passed in the company of Bhavabhūti that I here
undertake to make the real genius of the author, his greatness as a
dramatic poet, known beyond the little band of zealous Indianists in
Europe and America who can study the play in the original. For there
are many, in the West as elsewhere, who are eager for an intelligent
general knowledge of the great literatures of the world, such as is
accessible, however, to no human being in the originals, so numerous
are the languages in which veritable masterpieces have been written.
¹ Kṣaṇe kṣaṇe yan navatām upaiti tad eva rūpaṁ ramaṇīyatāyāḥ.—Śiśupālavadha, iv. 17.

Preface [xxx]
Moreover, the history and technique of the drama in general have now
become a recognized university study; and as a specimen of what India, inde-
pendently, has achieved in the way of dramatic literature, the present play will
not fail to be interesting. To Indianists, to students of comparative literature,
and to students of drama, accordingly, this edition makes its appeal.
But it is one thing to read a book and feel its beauties for oneself,
and a very different thing to help others to feel them. And the difficulty
is all the greater when that help has to be rendered through the medium
of a language which is not one's mother tongue. In that case the trans-
lator can never be quite certain that the English word which he is using
will convey the exact shade of meaning which the original Sanskrit word
has for him; or that the English word may not have, for an English
reader, some unpoetical connotation or lurking suggestion due to facts in
his social environment which the translator may not fairly be expected
to know. The kind criticism of Professor Lanman has saved me from
some of these pitfalls; but it is too much to hope that I have always
done full justice to the poet.
To translate a narrative work, or a work which interests us only by
reason of the facts which it tells us, is fairly easy. For a scientific or
philosophical treatise one has only to choose suitable technical terms and
define them precisely and use them consistently; and what is obscure or
unduly terse you can explain and expand. But in translating poetry we
are called upon not only to give the meaning correctly, but also to repro-
duce the subtle literary qualities of the original. Rhythm, word-order,
figures of speech, compactness or diffuseness of expression—in short,
almost every literary device of the original ought, in theory, to reappear
in the translation. But since the genius of one language differs radically
from that of another, an ideal translation is, as von Wilamowitz-
Moellendorff observes, a travesty or perhaps a metempsychosis: in other
words, a wellnigh impossible task. Some things must be sacrificed. But
it is far better, wherever possible, to keep close to the original and show
the author in his true native colours, rather than, under the pretext of
giving a literary finish to the translation, to make him say things which he
did not say and would never dream of saying.
A few words then as to certain principles, mostly limitations, that have
governed me in my translation. First, whereas the original play is
mingled prose and verse, the translation is all in prose. The translation
of the stanzas is set in narrow measure (that is, with an indentation on
both sides) and with the stanza-number at the end in bold-face type, and it
is thus distinguished typographically from the translation of the prose.
There are in the play nineteen kinds of metre, having from eight to nine-

xxxi] Preface
teen syllables to the line. Bhavabhūti uses these metres with consummate
skill, as I have tried to show in the Notes, and especially in Appendix 1.
The succession of light and heavy syllables and the rhythmic pauses which
break the line at irregular intervals give to each of these metres an
emotional effect which a Hindu at least can feel and perhaps describe, but
which it is absolutely impossible to reproduce in a language where the
system of verse-accent is wholly different. The use of prose in translation
carries with it, of course, the giving up of rhyme. Both rhyme and metre
are apt to lead to useless padding or unwarranted curtailing. Bentley's
familiar comment on Pope's Iliad is worth repeating: ‘A very pretty
poem, but he must not call it Homer.’ There have been, no doubt, a few
ideal translations made by men gifted with true poetic inspiration, but
unless the translator is sure that he has this gift, let him beware.
Secondly, as to literalness. An attempt, on linguistic or other grounds,
to render words radically akin in Sanskrit by words radically akin in
English, or to render the same word or phrase in just the same way at
every occurrence, is apt to defeat its own end. The word saṁskṛta is
indeed equal to con-fectus; but confection as a version of saṁskāra is
absurd. Again, the exigencies of the situation sometimes move the trans-
lator to render noun by adjective, adjective by adverb, adverb by verb, and
so on. In such cases, for the sake of those who are reading the original
also, the literal version or the analysis of the compound will be given in
the Notes. Once more, it may happen that the ever-varying context
shows that the same word has a dozen finely differenced shades of
meaning in as many different places. The particle kila, for example, is
here rendered in perhaps a dozen different ways. The like holds true
for the forms of address. In all this I have tried to heed von Wilamowitz-
Moellendorff's precept (Reden und Vorträge³, p. 5) : ‘To give free and origi-
nal expression to the thoughts and feelings and moods of the poet because
you [the translator] have yourself fully comprehended and experienced
them : that—no more, but also no less—is translating.’
Thirdly, as to word-order. It was Bhavabhūti's boast (i. 2) that upon
him the Goddess of Speech and Eloquence waited as a submissive hand-
maid. And so, we may not assume that with him ‘rhyme was the rudder
to sense’, in other words that his diction was determined by exigencies
of metre or the like. On the contrary, his word-order is deliberate and
almost always artistic; and in the stanzas especially he likes to create
a sort of suspense by withholding the principal word, or putting it in only
towards the end. In a highly inflected tongue like Sanskrit, the resultant
suspending of the sense or the resultant inversion is easily possible and
even natural, and I have often tried to reproduce it. But in English the

Preface [xxxii]
inflections are nearly all lost, and for this very reason the sense is so
dependent on the word-order as to leave little freedom in the arrangement
of words, save at the cost of unclearness or extreme harshness. And since
a translation, whatever else it pretends to be, must be intelligible, I have
had, yet oftener and against my will, to sacrifice the effects of the original
in the interest of ready intelligibility.
The alliterative effects of the original are often very striking. Bhava-
bhūti uses smooth liquid sounds for the softer emotions and harsh guttural
combinations to express the sturdier ones. To reproduce these effects in
English is in some cases not feasible, and in others not advisable, and in
most cases I had to give up the attempt.
Finally, as to exotic colour. If East and West are ever to understand
each other, then each must bring to the other a sympathetic hearing. On
either side a top-lofty condemnation of the peculiarities of the other quite
defeats the purposes of a book like this. Accordingly, I have not tried to
avoid an idea or an expression peculiar to the Hindus and easily understood
by them, just because it may seem ‘queer’ to a foreigner, and I venture to
hope that my attitude will be taken as the best compliment that I could
pay, not only to the author or to his native country, but also to the fair-
mindedness of my foreign readers. An instance or two. An older person
in addressing a younger, says āyushman. This I have rendered by
‘long-lived one’, meaning thereby not ‘one who has lived long’, but ‘one
who, it is hoped, may live long’. My version is un-English; but the
prayer for long life or the benediction (if indeed the speaker is conscious of
it at all) is an implicit one, and to render it always as if it were an explicit
one, by the phrase ‘may thy days be long’, or the like, is wholly wrong.
The synonymous (Marāṭhī) chirañjīva, is still current in India, and is
almost equivalent to ‘my son’ as used by an older man (not necessarily the
father) to the younger. Like comment might be made on the phrases
‘my father’s feet’, ‘lotus-feet’, ‘vitals of my heart’, ‘valiant monkeys’,
‘shampooing’, and others.
A few minor matters. Certain words, like yathā or iti (as marking the
beginning or the end of a quotation), or like iti or abhinīya with a stage-
direction, are sufficiently rendered by the italics in which those directions
are printed or by marks of punctuation. Sometimes, where my version
seemed too free, the original word is given in parentheses, although it is not
to be regarded as the precise equivalent of the adjacent English word.
Words inserted to complete the sense or to bring out more fully the exact
force of the original are put in square brackets. Most of the other devices
are self-explaining. In all these matters I have tried to follow the dictates
of common sense.

xxxiii] Preface
The foot-notes to the translation are meant to give the help that a non-
Hindu reader may need for understanding the play, but no more. The
play bristles with proper names as familiar to a Hindu as is the name
of Achilles to a Greek or of St. Paul to a Christian. These Sanskrit
names are hard for the Occidental. Moreover, he is confused as to the
identity of a character, partly because the same person is called by so
many different names. I have therefore given a brief foot-note every time
a new name appears in the translation. And to show the relation of the
several characters in the action, I have (on the advice of Professor Lanman)
given in the Introduction a summary of Vālmīki's Rāmāyaṇa, a poem which
(strange as it may seem to a Hindu) is very little known outside of India.
More elaborate verbal or aesthetic comments are reserved for the Notes
proper.
The conclusion of a preface, the grateful acknowledgement of kind
counsel and friendly services, is, to the author at least, a most delightful
task. It is right and it is pleasant to say 'Thank you'. And it is
pleasanter still to think that the names of men who share your enthu-
siasms are to be permanently associated with your work, and that the
turning of its pages will always remind you of those who have toiled and
are toiling with you to reach a common goal.
The names of those who have edited or translated this play before me
are given in Appendix 12, and need not be repeated here.
Dr. Frederick W. Thomas, Librarian of the India Office in London, has
procured for me the loan of manuscripts from the India Office Library,
the Deccan College Manuscripts Library and the Ānandāśrama Library
of Poona, and the Sanskrit College Library of Calcutta—and all with a zeal
and kindness that go far beyond the perfunctory discharge of official duty.
Dr. Otto Schrader of the Adyar Library at Madras did me the valued
favour of sending to the Harvard Library for my use some palm-leaf
manuscripts. And I am indebted to Mr. S. P. V. Ranganāthaswāmi,
Āryavaraguru, of Vizagapatam, for a similar favour, and also for
providing me with some early editions of the play, now out of print.
The Prime Minister of Nepal, with a liberality and insight that deserve
all praise, sent seventy manuscripts of the Durbar Library to Oxford for
photographic reproduction under the supervision of Professor Macdonell,
among them the old and important Nevārī manuscript (dated 1196) of this
play, and of it the Harvard College Library generously procured for me a
rotograph copy. To His Excellency, to Dr. Macdonell, and to the College,
my hearty thanks.
Shreemant Babasaheb Ghorpade, the talented Chief of Inchalkaranji,
has laid me under considerable obligation. It is to his kindness that
e [H.O.S. 21]

Preface [xxxiv
I owe the loan of the important Old Javanese version of the Rāmāyaṇa
which he had secured from Java. Professor H. Kern of Utrecht, the
editor of that version, very kindly supplied me with certain items of
information about it. My college friend, Mr. R. D. Ranade of Poona,
and my brother-in-law, Dr. N. G. Sardesai, have kept me constantly
supplied with books and information of all kinds, which, but for them
and at such a distance from India, I should not have been able to obtain.
The suggestion to edit this play for the Harvard Oriental Series
came first from Professor James Haughton Woods of Harvard University,
whose acquaintance I made while he was studying philosophy in India,
and who, both at the inception of the work and in its progress, has given
me his help and his whole-hearted sympathy.
To the Controller of the Oxford University Press, Mr. Horace Hart, M.A.,
my thanks are due not only for the typographic excellence of the work, but
also for the promptness with which he printed it.
This work, while yet incomplete, was submitted in partial fulfilment
of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Harvard
University.
There is yet one more name which I must mention, and which I have
purposely kept to the last. It is impossible to express adequately all that
this edition owes to the sympathy, the assistance, the almost fatherly care
that it has received from my honoured teacher, Professor C. R. Lanman,
the editor of this series. When in India, I had made some sort of a plan
for bringing out an annotated edition of the Uttara-Rāma-charita. I cannot
say what that edition would have been like; but if the present form of the
work is in any way an improvement on my earlier plan, as it undoubtedly
is, the difference is all to the credit of Professor Lanman. He assisted me
in my work most unselfishly. There was no detail too slight to escape his
attention, and on every point he would bring to bear all the mature results
of his wide experience as a scholar and an editor. His criticisms were
always judicious and sympathetic; and I have profited as much by what
he taught me expressly in the way of western scientific methods of
research as by the indirect inspiration that I derived while observing him
at work upon the Visuddhimagga. As the work was born and has grown,
so it is natural that it should also go forth into the world under Professor
Lanman’s guidance, and I congratulate myself upon having succeeded in
overcoming his reluctance to have this work dedicated to him.
S. K. BELVALKAR.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY,
April, 1914.

INTRODUCTION

Bhavabhūti, his life, and his date

1. Bhavabhūti's account of himself.—Bhavabhūti, the author of the
Uttara-Rāma-charita, gives in the prologues to his three plays various
items of information about himself and his family. This information is
fullest in the Mahāvīra-charita,¹ which is probably the poet's earliest work.
In his second work, the Mālatī-Mādhava,² there is, in addition to this
information, an attempt to glorify his family (i. 7) and his own attain-
ments (i. 10). There is also a note of defiance or of discontent (i. 8) at the
reception accorded to his earlier work. His latest work, the Uttara-
Rāma-charita, is most meagre and also modest in the biographical matter.
These items may be put together as follows :
In the country to the south there is a city called Padma-pura. In it
live certain Brahmans surnamed Udumbara, who trace their lineage to the
saint Kaśyapa. They follow the Taittirīya branch of the Black Yajur
Veda, are well versed in the Brahma-lore, and have performed the Soma
sacrifice.³ They are pious householders, heads of their school, revered of
all men, and duly maintain the five Sacred Fires. It was to this family
of the Udumbaras that that famous performer of the Vājapeya sacrifice,
he who was called Mahā-Kavi (Great Poet), belonged. Fifth in descent
from him is our Bhavabhūti, Bhaṭṭa Gopāla of blessed name being his
grandfather, and Nīlakaṇṭha of hallowed memory being his father. His
mother's name is Jatukarṇī. Bhavabhūti's original name is Śrīkaṇṭha ;⁴

[Footnotes]

[Left Column]
¹ Mahāvīra-charita is cited from the Nirṇaya
Sāgara edition of 1901 with Vīrarāghava's
commentary. From v. 46¹ to the end, I
cite the version given in that edition
without the comm., on the pages follow-
ing 247 (first sequence).
² The Mālatī-Mādhava is cited from the Nir-
ṇaya Sāgara ed. of 1900 with the comm.'s
of Tripurāri and Nānyadeva, and of
Jagaddhara. The various Nirṇaya Sāgara
editions of the two plays do not differ
much as to pagination.
³ See Dr. A. B. Keith, Bhavabhūti and the
Veda, JRAS., July, 1914, p. 729. [Added

[Right Column]
in proof-sheets.]
⁴ 'In whose throat—upon whose lips—resides
the Goddess of Wealth and Eloquence.'
This probably was the name given him
by his parents. His full name would
accordingly be Śrīkaṇṭha Nīlakaṇṭha
Udumbara. He was called Bhava-bhūti,
say some, because God Śiva (Bhava) gave
him 'luck' or 'holy ashes' (bhūti); others
say, because he wrote a stanza containing
either the line Sāmbā punātu Bhava-bhūti-
pavitra-mūrtiḥ or Girijāyāḥ kuchau vande
Bhava-bhūti-sitānanau.

Introduction [xxxvi]
he has mastered the sciences of grammar and rhetoric and logic,¹ and has
studied the Vedas and the Upanishads, the Sāṅkhya and the Yoga. His
preceptor was Jñāna-nidhi,² rightly so called, a pious ascetic, and, like
Aṅgiras, pre-eminent among the sages. Bhavabhūti is a poet and, as is
natural, is in friendly relations with the actors, into whose hands he gave
his dramatic works.
2. His family-home, Padmapura in the Berars.—Some manuscripts
of the Mālatī-Mādhava distinctly say that Padmapura was 'in the Berars',
Vidarbheshu.³ In the prologue, the stage-manager speaks of the play as
enacted on the occasion of the 'fair of Lord Kālapriya'. If the usual
assumption is correct that Lord Kālapriya is the same as Mahākāleśvara,
whose famous shrine at Ujjain in Mālva is mentioned by Kālidāsa and
Bāṇa and others,⁴ and if we are justified in inferring that the Mālatī-
Mādhava was therefore enacted at Ujjain,—then the stage-manager's
mention of Padmapura as 'in the country to the south' or as 'in the
Dekkan' (Dakshiṇāpathe) would be entirely in harmony with the datum
of the manuscripts which specify Padmapura as 'in the Berars'; for
Vidarbha is in fact to the south (and a little east) of Ujjain. In fairness,
however, we must add that the oldest extant manuscript ⁵ of the Mālatī-
Mādhava, dated Nevārī Saṁvat 276 = A.D. 1156, does not mention the
province in which Padmapura was situated, nor does the prologue to
the Mahāvīra-charita.
3. Identity of Padmapura with Padmāvatī of the Mālatī-Mādhava
unproved.—The scene of the Mālatī-Mādhava is laid in a city named
Padmāvatī. This city and its surroundings are so minutely described in
that play, especially at the end of act iv and the beginning of act ix, that
Mr. M. V. Lele ⁶ believes he has succeeded in identifying its exact site
with that of what is now a small village called Pavāyā or Polā-Pavāyā,
near which remains of a considerable city are discernible. Pavāyā is
a little to the north-east of Narvār. Narvār is near the centre of Gwalior
state, and is almost due south of Agra, and just 100 miles from it; and it is
220 miles from Ujjain, about north-east by north.
If Bhavabhūti's ancestral home, Padmapura, is to be identified with the

Footnotes

¹ 'Science of words and of sentences and of syllogisms.'
² 'Store of knowledge.'
³ See Dr. Bhandarkar's 2nd edition, p. 11 of the Text, end.
⁴ See Raghuvaṁśa, vi. 34; Meghadūta 37 (stanza Bhartuḥ kaṇṭha-, &c.) and 38; also Kādambarī, p. 53, ed. of the Bombay Skt. Series.
⁵ The Nepal Durbar Library MS., no. 1473 ṭ of the Catalogue (Calcutta, 1905), a palm-leaf MS. I used a rotograph copy of it made for the Harvard College Library.
⁶ See his book (in Marāṭhī) entitled Mālatī-Mādhava, Sāra va Vichāra, p. 5 a. Also Cunningham, Archaeological Report for 1862–5, vol. ii, pp. 307–8, where, however, Padmāvatī is identified with Narvār itself.

xxxvii] Bhavabhūti, his Life, and his Date
Padmāvatī described in the Mālatī-Mādhava (as is sometimes done), we must
find some shrine of Lord Kālapriya with reference to which Padmāvatī
may be said to be ‘on the road to the south’, and Mr. Lele suggests¹ that
Kālpi on the Jumna (about fifty miles south-west of Cawnpur) does meet
this requirement. According to this view, the play was first enacted at
the fair at Kālpi (=Kālapriya), and the poet’s family seat, Padmapura
(=Padmāvatī, near Narvār), would indeed have been ‘on the road to the
south’ from Kālpi. The arguments for this view concern 1. the names,
and 2. the preciseness of the description of Padmāvatī. As to the names,
Padmapura and Padmāvatī do indeed mean the same thing, Lotus-ville,
but neither of them is a distinctive name (there are twenty-nine Green-villes
in the United States); and the surface similarity between Kālpi and
Kālapriya is not by itself convincing. As for the argument that Bhava-
bhūti’s description of Padmāvatī could only have been written by one
familiar with the place from birth, it is quite devoid of cogency. His
description of the Daṇḍakā forest would prove just as well that he was
born there also! It proves his keenness of observation, not his birthplace.
Moreover in describing the region of Padmāvatī, Bhavabhūti says:
‘These hills and forests remind me of the Godāvarī and the southern
mountains.’ The word ‘remind’ (smārayanti, M. M. ix. 3²) clearly marks
his acquaintance with Padmāvatī as the later experience and his familiarity
with the south as the earlier one. Pending the discovery of new data,
then, we may assume that Bhavabhūti’s ancestral home, Padmapura, was
in the Berars,² and not near the site of Narvār in Gwalior state.
This would not of course necessarily involve the further assumption,
which it is usual to make, of the identity of the shrine of Lord Kālapriya
with that of Mahākaleśvara of Ujjain. That is possible, but it is better
to leave the question open.
4. Further biographical details.—It would thus seem that, like the
hero in his Mālatī-Mādhava, Bhavabhūti quite early in life left his native
country of the Berars and went to Ujjain in Mālva, or perhaps to Padmā-
vatī, there to complete his studies under his preceptor Jñānanidhi.
Bhavabhūti here not only grounded himself in the various sciences,³ but
also, like his older contemporary or immediate predecessor, Bāṇa,⁴ stood
¹ In his book just cited, pp. 4 b, 84 a.
² Dr. Bhandarkar (in his M.M., 2nd ed., note
to act i, line 31) observes that there are
still many Brahman families in the
region around Chandā who follow the
Taittirīya branch of the Black Yajur
Veda, the branch to which Bhava-
bhūti’s family belonged (above, § 1).
Chandā is in Nagpur, near the border of
the Berars, and not far from the Godāvarī.
³ He likes to show off his knowledge: cp.
Glossary 1, Technical terms from the
three plays.
⁴ Cp. Harsha-charita, p. 47 f, Nir. Sāg. ed.
For the chronological relation cp. below,
§ 8.

on friendly terms with all sorts and conditions of men. Especially
intimate was his friendship with the actors. The Mahāvīra-charita and
Mālatī-Mādhava actually mention this friendship in the prologue; in the
Uttara-Rāma-charita it is hinted at in the account given by Lava of
Vālmīki’s play-within-the-play (act iv. 22²⁷⁻³⁵), which we may well believe
to be autobiographical. We should very much like to have some details
about this relation between the actors and the would-be dramatist, but all
is left to imagination. It is possible that Bhavabhūti began by writing
for his actor-friends prologues for other people’s plays.¹ He may even at
times have modified an earlier play. Possibly again he may have actually
taken parts in the plays.² Certain it is that he soon persuaded the actors
to stage his own plays, and though he did not immediately succeed as
a playwright, he soon got recognition, and was perhaps even able (below,
§ 13) to secure royal patronage.
5. Bhavabhūti’s personality as inferred from his writings.—Regarding
Bhavabhūti’s private life, the impression which the perusal of his plays
leaves upon us is of the most favourable kind. He was by no means
Fortune’s favourite. His was an uphill fight for fame, may be for even
food and the daily necessities of the family; and he complains very bitterly
(Māl. Mādh. i. 8) against the proverbially fickle judgements of the people.
Even his latest play (Uttara-Rāma, i. 5) is not without this pessimistic
note. It would thus seem that our poet had experienced many a reverse
of fortune ³ and had emerged triumphant from them all. What gave him
the strength to fight his unequal fight with the world, what sustained his
courage and infused a new enthusiasm in him, was the consolation of an
ideal family life such as, we must believe, was his. Love was not to him
a mere sensuous affair, as it often is with poets Sanskrit or non-Sanskrit;
it was with him a spiritual communion of souls. Of such a love he has
left us many an idealized picture which may well bear comparison with
those of other literatures. Thus he says:
Uniform in happiness and in sorrow—conformable to all the
conditions of life—in which the heart finds solace—the flavour
of which age cannot stint—which, with time, as the veil of
reserve drops away, abides as a perfect and ripened affection,—
that one supreme blessing only the fortunate among mankind,
and after a sore trial, attain. (Uttara-Rāma-charita, i. 39.)
And it is not only in the Uttara-Rāma-charita, where the theme was
exalted, and the personages ideal, that we find such lofty sentiments. We
have similar ones in the Mālatī-Mādhava: for example, vi. 18:
¹ See Appendix 8. ³ Cp. Mālatī-Mādhava, viii. 14; Uttara-Rāma-
² Cp. note to English Translation, act vii. 19⁹. charita, vii. 4ᶜ,ᵈ.

xxxix] Bhavabhūti, his Life, and his Date
Know ye, my dear children, that for the man his lawfully wedded
wife and for the wife her lord are, the one to the other, the
dearest of friends, the sum-total, I should say, of all relations,
the consummation of all desires, a priceless treasure, the very
life and all.
And when children come, this affection between man and wife reaches
its utmost perfection (Uttara-Rāma, iii. 18) :
As being the common meeting-ground of the father's and the
mother's affection, in a child we, so to say, tie in a common knot
of joy the several strands of their hearts.
Bhavabhūti's conception of friendship was also equally lofty. Compare,
for instance, Mahāvīra-charita, v. 59 :
To guard thy friend's interests even at the sacrifice of thy own
life; in thy dealings with him to avoid all malice, all guile ; and
to strive for his weal as thou wouldst for thy own : such is the
course of noble friendship.
Other instances of this are the relation between Mādhava and Makaranda
(Mālatī-Mādhava, ix. 40) and that between Janaka and Daśaratha (Uttara-
Rāma, iv. 13, 14). These extracts from Bhavabhūti's works will help to
make the otherwise shadowy figure of the poet somewhat life-like and
real. We now proceed to the more difficult task of determining his date.
6. Bhavabhūti's date : traditional story about Kālidāsa and Bhava-
bhūti.—Tradition couples Bhavabhūti's name with that of Kālidāsa,
grouping them with seven others as the 'nine gems' of the court of king
Vikrama or Vikramāditya of Ujjain. The story goes that, when Kālidāsa
was already a recognized 'gem' in the court of Vikramāditya, there came
to him one day a Brahman poet, and begged him to intercede with the
king and secure the royal patronage. This poet was no other than our
Bhavabhūti. He read aloud his Uttara-Rāma-charita while Kālidāsa was
half listening to him and half engaged in playing a game of sāra's (a kind
of chess). When Bhavabhūti had finished, Kālidāsa praised the work very
highly, and agreed to use his influence for the poet if he would but drop
a bindu (nasal) in the last line of one of the stanzas (i. 27. See Notes).
Bhavabhūti accepted the improvement, and became an acknowledged
'gem'.
The stanza about the 'nine gems' is late, and we do not even know
from it who is meant by 'Vikramāditya', since that is a title assumed by
several kings. The Saṁvat era which is still current in many parts of

Introduction [xl]
India is supposed to have been founded by a Vikramāditya (57 B.C.), and
some scholars place Kālidāsa in the court of this Vikramāditya. But the
best modern opinion¹ makes the Golden Age of the classical Sanskrit
literature coincident with the bloom of the Gupta dynasty, several kings
of which had assumed the title of Vikramāditya. This brings Kālidāsa
somewhere between 375 and 475 A.D.
7. Bhavabhūti's works certainly influenced by those of Kālidāsa.—
The matter of Kālidāsa's Śākuntala is an old epic legend which we find in
the Mahā-Bhārata; and the matter of his Urvaśī may be traced through the
Brāhmaṇas back to the hymns of the Ṛigveda itself. Accordingly, the fact
that Bhavabhūti alludes in his Mālatī-Mādhava (see ii. 7¹⁰, iii. 3) to the
familiar tales of Śakuntalā and Dushyanta, and of Purūravas and Urvaśī,
has of course not an atom's weight towards proving that he knew the tales
from Kālidāsa's plays. On the other hand, the dénouement of the Uttara-
Rāma-charita resembles that of the Śākuntala enough to suggest that
Bhavabhūti was familiar with Kālidāsa's technique. Again, the parallelisms
in thought and expression as between Bhavabhūti and Kālidāsa (they have
been put together for study in appendix 4) present further cumulative
evidence looking in the same direction. Thirdly, the parallelism between
act ix of Mālatī and act iv of Urvaśī is even yet more weighty as proof.
In the one we have the love-lorn Mādhava wandering in quest of his
Mālatī, and in the other the distracted Purūravas seeking in vain for
Urvaśī. Here again, as between Bhavabhūti and Kālidāsa, the dramatic
situation and its poetic treatment bear such striking similarity as to suggest
direct and conscious imitation. Fourthly, Bhavabhūti's dramatic device
(at M. M. ix. 25, 26) of making the desperate Mādhava send a cloud as
messenger to his beloved, is so clearly an imitation of Kālidāsa's Cloud-
messenger or Megha-dūta that there can be scarcely a doubt that Bhava-
bhūti (perhaps its earliest imitator) here had that famous and much-
imitated poem distinctly in mind,—so complete is the correspondence of
the stanzas concerned not only in situation but also in the words and even
in the characteristic metre. Indeed, as concerns points three and four, we
may say that Bhavabhūti has deliberately set himself to use Kālidāsa's
motifs, and if possible, in so doing, to surpass him.
So much then seems certain, that Bhavabhūti studied and imitated
Kālidāsa. Accordingly he may have been either a somewhat younger

¹ See B. Liebich, Das Datum des Kālidāsa,
Indogermanische Forschungen, Band
xxxi (1912), pp. 198-203. This paper
gives a convenient statement of the vari-
ous older views and arguments with the
needed references to previous discussions.
Compare also Professor Pathak's paper
on Kālidāsa and the Hūṇas of the Oxus
valley, Ind. Ant. for Nov. 1912, pp. 265–
267.

contemporary of Kālidāsa, or else he may (so far as this evidence goes)
be later than Kālidāsa by any amount of time. To try to determine the
interval between them as small or great by differences of style small or
great is a futile task such as has often been tried, and in vain.
8. Bhavabhūti probably later than Bāṇa, about A.D. 610.—The emperor
Harsha of Kanauj reigned from 606 to 648, and the illustrious Chinese
pilgrim Hiuen Tsang has made for us many interesting records of that
memorable reign. Bāṇa was Harsha's court-poet, and wrote a 'History of
Harsha' or Harsha-charita to glorify his imperial patron. The date of the
book may be set at A.D. 610. In the introduction Bāṇa mentions Bhāsa and
Kālidāsa and other famous poets, but not Bhavabhūti.
The argumentum ex silentio is indeed a dangerous one. In this same
introduction Bāṇa omits all 'mention of Vālmīki, although Bāṇa certainly
knew about the Rāmāyaṇa and its author (cp. Kādambarī, ed. Peterson,
pp. 51, 91, &c.). Nevertheless, if Bhavabhūti preceded Bāṇa or was contem-
poraneous with him, it is very unlikely that Bāṇa, as an eminent man
of letters, should not have known Bhavabhūti, an eminent man of letters.
True, Bāṇa and Bhavabhūti did not belong to the same court, and in old
times news did not travel fast; or it may be that Bhavabhūti did not
attain eminence until after the Harsha-charita was finished. But otherwise
it is hard to see why Bāṇa—when mentioning the dramatists Bhāsa and
Kālidāsa—did not mention the dramatist Bhavabhūti also, except on the
assumption that Bhavabhūti was somewhat later than Bāṇa.
9. Identity of Bhavabhūti with 'a pupil of Kumārila' (say 700–750)
unproved.—There is a manuscript of the Mālatī-Mādhava, in appearance
about 400 years old, which in the colophons to acts iii and vi assigns the
play to 'a pupil of Kumārila', but elsewhere assigns it to Bhavabhūti.
According to this evidence,¹ Bhavabhūti was a pupil of the great Mīmāṁsā
teacher, Kumārila, of about A.D. 700. Unfortunately, the colophon to act vi
complicates the matter by giving the name of that pupil as Umvekāchārya.
It follows either 1. that this was an alias of Bhavabhūti, or else 2. that
the Mālatī-Mādhava is a composite work, and that, while the other eight
acts are by Bhavabhūti, acts iii and vi are by Umvekāchārya, perhaps a
substitution (like that of Subrahmaṇya in the Mahāvīra-charita ²) of his
own version of these two acts in place of Bhavabhūti's original version
which this 'pupil of Kumārila' did not like.
Obviously we are giving undue weight to the testimony of a single

Footnotes:

¹ First brought out by Mr. Lele, p. 84 of his book cited above at p. xxxvi; further discussed by Mr. S. P. Pandit, introd. to Gaüḍavaho, pp. ccv ff. See also preface to Dr. Bhandarkar's M. M, 2nd ed., p. viii.
² See Nirṇaya Sāgara ed. of the play, p. 213 n.
f [H.O.S. 21]

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.

xliii] Bhavabhūti, his Life, and his Date
the spiritual teacher or guru of Mahendrapāla of Kanauj; and this
monarch is mentioned in the Siyadoni inscription ¹ with the dates 903–4
and 907–8. The date of Rājaśekhara is accordingly put at about A. D. 900.
So far as these facts may determine it therefore, the latest limit for
Bhavabhūti would be about 850 to 875.
11. Date of Yaśovarman of Kanauj as determining that of Vākpati-
rāja.—Kalhaṇa’s Chronicle of the kings of Kaśmīr or Rājatarangiṇī, written
1148–9, states at iv. 134 that the king of Kaśmīr, Lalitāditya-Muktāpīḍa
(Mu-to-pi of the Chinese Annals), subdued king Yaśovarman of Kānyakubja
or Kanauj. From the Chronicle, the limits of Lalitāditya’s reign appear to
be 699 to 735 A. D.; but Stein is of opinion that the humiliation of Yaśo-
varman by Lalitāditya was subsequent ² to a certain embassy sent by the
latter to the Chinese emperor, which embassy, according to the Annals,
cannot have been earlier than 736.
12. Date of Vākpatirāja’s Gaüḍavaho not far from 736.—Yaśovar-
man’s court-poet during some part of his reign (presumably the later) was
a man called in Sanskrit Vākpatirāja, or in Prākrit, Bappairāa. He wrote
a Prākrit poem entitled Gaüḍavaho (Sanskrit Gāuḍavadhah). This means
‘Slaughter of the Gauḍian [king]’. It is a long poem of over 1200 stanzas,
devoted ostensibly to the glorification of his Royal patron Yaśovarman.
It was evidently planned on an ‘enormous’ (viyaḍa = vikaṭa) scale; for,
long as it is, it is in fact only a prelude, and does not even give the name
of the ‘Gauḍian king’, much less any details about his ‘slaughter’. It was
edited by Shankar Pandurang Pandit (Bombay, 1887), with an elaborate
introduction, discussing Yaśovarman (pp. xvii ff.), his date (lxvii), Vākpati-
rāja’s personal history (xxxiii and lxiv), and the date of the writing of the
poem (xcvi). Other pertinent discussions are: Bühler’s paper in WZKM,
Band ii, pp. 328–40; Jacobi’s, in the Göttinger Gel. Anzeigen of 1888,
no. 2, p. 68; Stein’s notes to his translation (1900) of Kalhaṇa; and
Bhandarkar’s 2nd ed. (1905) of Mālatī-Mādhava, preface, p. xiii.
In determining the date of the writing of the Gaüḍavaho, no question
could be more pertinent than this: Why does the poem, planned upon an
‘enormous’ scale, stop short with the prelude, and not even take up the
slaughter of the Gauḍian king,³ that is, the very subject which, to judge
from the title of the poem, should form its main substance? The most
natural answer is that Vākpatirāja began his panegyric in the days of
Yaśovarman’s greatest successes, and that, after writing his prelude of

Footnotes:
¹ See Kielhorn, Epigraphia Indica, i. 171; or Konow, l. c., pp. 178–9.
² See Stein’s Translation of the Chronicle, Introduction, § 85, and cp. his notes on iv. 134 and iv. 126, and § 66.
³ For meagre and incidental mentions of him, see Mr. S. P. Pandit, Introd. p. xlii.

Introduction [xliv
1200 stanzas, he was moved to abandon the subject proper by reason
of some great disaster or humiliation¹ that befell his patron—presumably
the humiliation experienced at the hands of Lalitāditya. If this is as
certain as it is plausible, the composition of the Gaüḍavaho would be not
very far from A.D. 736.
13. Bhavabhūti probably a little earlier than Vākpatirāja.—We are
now in a position to consider the bearing of Vākpatirāja’s date upon the
date of Bhavabhūti. For the chronological relation of these two men we
have two important texts. The first is in Kalhaṇa’s Chronicle, iv. 144, and
reads as follows :
kaviVākpatirāja-śrīBhavabhūty-ādi-sevitaḥ
jito yayau Yaśovarmā tadguṇastutivanditām.
‘Yaśovarman, on whom attended the poet Vākpatirāja, the illustrious
Bhavabhūti, and other [poets], became by his defeat [at the hands of
Lalitāditya] a panegyrist of his [Lalitāditya’s] virtues.’ There is not the
smallest reason to doubt that this Vākpatirāja is the same as the author of
the Gaüḍavaho; and the complete reversal of fortune which explains so
well the author’s leaving the main part of his poem unwritten, is here most
clearly set forth. And it would seem extremely improbable that, when
speaking of ‘illustrious Bhavabhūti’, Kalhaṇa had any other poet in mind
than the great dramatist who now engages our attention. In short, it is
a safe inference that both Bhavabhūti and Vākpatirāja,—the latter officially,
the former we know not how,—were connected with the court of
Yaśovarman.
As making against the inference that Bhavabhūti was connected with
the court of Yaśovarman we must in fairness mention two facts : 1. from
none of Bhavabhūti’s extant works do we get the impression that he was
at any time basking in royal favour; and 2. still less do we find any
direct statement that he was ever in attendance upon Yaśovarman. But
these facts are not perhaps of much consequence. In spite of his silence,
Bhavabhūti may have received occasional gifts from that king.
Secondly, as making against the assumption that ‘the illustrious Bhava-
bhūti’ mentioned by Kalhaṇa is the same as our Bhavabhūti, we must
mention the circumstance that, in the dvandva compound contained in the
stanza above cited, Kalhaṇa places ‘śrī-Bhavabhūti’ after ‘Vākpatirāja’,
whereas, if Kalhaṇa knew that the dramatist Bhavabhūti was older than
Vākpatirāja (see below) and if he was scrupulous as to a point of grammar
like this, he should have placed ‘śrī-Bhavabhūti’ before ‘Vākpatirāja’,
since vārtika 3 to Pāṇini ii. 2. 34 requires that what is prior in order
¹ Cp. Mr. S. P. Pandit, l. c., pp. lxxii, lxxiii.

xlv] Bhavabhūti, his Life, and his Date

of time or nature should come earlier in a dvandva compound. This
objection can be met by supposing that ‘Vākpatirāja’, the first member
of the compound, was in Kalhaṇa’s view the more important one, abhyarhita
(vār. 4 to Pāṇ. ii. 2. 34), the one more intimately connected with the court
of Yaśovarman, and so he could be placed before ‘śrī-Bhavabhūti’.
As a matter of fact, however, we should not attempt to make much out
of a subtle point of grammar like the present. Compounds which seem to
violate one rule are often justifiable by another. Thus the compound
grahītṛi-grahaṇa-grāhyeshu (Yoga-sūtra, i. 41) may seem to go against
Pāṇini ii. 2. 34, but it would be perfectly correct if the author of the
Yoga-sūtra considered grahītṛi, the percipient, as more important than
grāhya, the object perceived. Or it may be that the Sūtrakara is here
following a traditional order of words, as he certainly is in the compound
śraddhā-vīrya-smṛiti-samādhi-prajñā¹ in i. 20. I do not think, therefore,
that Professor Jacobi (JAOS., December, 1910, pp. 26–7) has succeeded in
establishing, on the strength of two ‘incorrect’ dvandva compounds, the
existence of a Yoga-Patañjali as distinct from Vyākaraṇa-Patañjali, seeing
that the latter himself does not quarrel with Kātyāyana’s ‘incorrect’
dvandva compounds in vār. 1 to ii. 2. 35, vār. 1 to ii. 2. 36, vār. 6 to
ii. 1. 51, &c. But this is by the way.
The second relevant text is a passage of eight stanzas (797–804) found
in the Gaüḍavaho itself. In it Vākpatirāja is speaking about himself, and
the gist of it is as follows: Vākpatirāja was a favourite friend of Yaśovarman
and bore the title of Head-poet or Kavirāja [797]. Although not naturally
gifted as a poet, he yet came to honour through [the teaching (?) or the
favour (?) of] Kamalāyudha [798]. And in his enormous (viyaḍa) narrative-
structures even now there flash excellences, like drops of the nectar of
poetry from the ocean of Bhavabhūti [literal version of 799]. And his
delight is in the works of Bhāsa, Jvalanamitra, Kālidāsa, Subandhu, &c.
[800]. He is versed in logic, &c. &c. [801–804].
Taking the passage as a whole, and especially the mention of the great
dramatists Bhāsa and Kālidāsa, there is no good reason for doubt as to
who is meant by ‘Bhavabhūti’. It must be the dramatist Bhavabhūti.
Next, it is clear that in stanza 799 Vākpatirāja is modestly acknowledging
an indebtedness to the influence of Bhavabhūti. Was that influence exerted
personally, that is, was Vākpatirāja a pupil of Bhavabhūti? or was it
exerted through Bhavabhūti’s writings which Vākpatirāja read and studied?
Apart from the phrase ‘even now’, the general wording of the stanza
seems to favour the latter view. The phrase ‘even now’ does not decide

¹ Compare also the compounds in Yoga-sūtra, i. 6; ii. 3, 15, 18, 29, 30, 32; iii. 53; iv. 1.