वासवदत्ता (महाकवि सुबन्धु - श्लेष-प्रधान शास्त्रीय गद्यकाव्य सान्वय सटीक)

pp. 1–139, Leipzig, 1902) and Collins (The Geographical Data of
the Raghuvaṃśa and the Daśakumāracarita considered more
especially in their Bearing upon the Date of these Works, Leipzig,
1907) have devoted admirable studies to Daṇḍin, while Peterson
(Kādambarī, 2 ed., Introd., Bombay, 1889) has done a similar
service for Bāṇa. Moreover, the Daśakumāracarita, Harṣacarita,
and Kādambarī are all readily accessible, not only in numerous
editions, which need not be enumerated here, but also in excellent
translations (the Daśakumāracarita by Meyer, op. cit., and by
Haberlandt, Munich, 1903; the Harṣacarita by Cowell and
Thomas, London, 1897; and the Kādambarī by Ridding,
London, 1896). It may not be amiss, however, to add a brief
outline of such other Sanskrit romances as have thus far been
analysed, though it must be borne in mind that further investiga-
tions and additional and fuller catalogues of Sanskrit manuscripts
will, in all probability, add to the sum of ākhyāna literature.¹
Omitting campūs on Rāma, Kṛṣṇa, Aniruddha, and Nala, as well
as rifacimenti of the Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaṇa, and pseudo-
histories of Śālivāhana and Mayūravarman, attention may here
be called to two late Sanskrit romances. The first of these is
the Yaśastilaka of Sōmadēva, who completed his romance in
959 A.D. The work has been analysed in detail by Peterson
(Second Report of Operations in Search of Sanskrit Manuscripts
in the Bombay Circle, pp. 33–49, Bombay, 1884) and has been
edited by Śivadatta and Parab (Kāvyamālā, No. 70, 2 parts,
Bombay, 1901–1903). It is a religious romance, treating of the
conversion of Māridatta, king of Rājapura, from Brāhmanism to
Jainism through the agency of his twin nephew and niece, whom
he was about to offer in sacrifice, not knowing who they were, and
through the arguments of the Jain sage Sudatta. The familiar
device of the story within a story, whereby Māridatta’s nephew
¹ Krishnamachariar (Introd., pp. 1–2) notes the paucity of works of this type, but
he enumerates the following which would otherwise have escaped my notice: Dhana-
pāla’s Tilakamañjarī (ed. Bombay, 1903 = Kāvyamālā, No. 85), the Jain romance
Gadyacintāmaṇi (variously ascribed to Vādībhasimha, Pradīpasimha, and Simhasūri),
Abhinavabhaṭṭabāṇa’s Vīranārāyaṇa and Haricandra’s Jīvandharacampū, the frag-
mentary Śrīkṛṣṇacarita of Agastyakavi, the lost Trāilōkyasundarī of Rudra, and
the lost Taraṅgavatī. He also attempts to account for this scantiness (pp. 2–8).