प्रियदर्शिका नाटिका (सम्राट हर्षवर्धन - चतुरङ्क शास्त्रीय नाटिका सान्वय सटीक)

XIX
to different countries. So this argument of similar ideas, and
of similar grammatical and literary peculiarities is not sound,
especially when we find that the style of Bhāsa is widely differ-
ent from the style of Priyadarśikā and its sister plays. The
style of Bhāsa is crude and is not elegant or graceful; while the
style of Ratnāvalī and its sister plays is refined and graceful.
The plays of Bhāsa evidently belong to a more distant age. The
similarity of ideas &c. can be explained on the ground that the
author of Ratnāvalī and the two plays might have read Bhāsa's
plays, as he did Kālidāsa's also, and tried to imitate him in
certain points. So this theory about Bhāsa's authorship of
the three plays in question, is also untenable. See also our
Introd. to the Ratnāvalī.
We have thus disposed of all the theories about the
authorship of the three plays, Priyadarśikā, Ratnāvalī,
and Nāgānand. We have also examined the internal as well as
the external evidence that is available to us and we are led to
the irresistible conclusion that Shri Harsha of Kanauj, who
reigned from 606–648 A. D., is the author of Ratnāvalī and
the other two plays.
(3) HARSHA AS A POET AND DRAMATIST.
Harsha's merits as a poet and dramatist are certainly great.
But he can be placed only in the second class among Sanskrit
authors. Like many other playwrights he does not
show originality in the invention of the plots of his
dramas nor great skill or delicacy in the portraiture of
character. But he shows considerable skill in the
creation of incidents and situations necessary for dramatic
effect.* He has neither the imagination, the fancy and the grace
of Kālidāsa, nor Bhavabhūti's loftiness of thought and depth
and force of passion. As a dramatic artist and master of the
language also he is inferior to either of them. But he has
the great merit of simplicity of expression and thought.
His style is free from the artificiality, overstraining of words,
exaggeration of thought and sentiment, which characterise
later Sanskrit literature. His Sanskrit is elegant and precise
and his use of figures of speech and thought, is on the whole
restrained and in good taste. Coming as he does after Kālidāsa

• See infra. our remarks on the source of the plot