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

42 VĀSAVADATTĀ
tells his uncle all his history, and a series of reincarnations, as
in the Daśakumāracarita and Kādambarī,¹ are both found in
Sōmadēva’s romance, while learned precedents and, what is still
more remarkable, explicit quotations from other poets, including
Bāṇa, abound. Altogether, it is clear from Peterson’s admirable
analysis that the Yaśastilaka richly deserves translation, both
as belonging to a category of Sanskrit literature of which too
few specimens are extant, and as a valuable source for additional
knowledge of the tenets of the Jains.
The second romance which should be noted in this connexion
is Bāṇēśvara Vidyālaṃkāra Bhaṭṭācārya’s Citracampū, written in
1744 A.D. in honour of Citrasēna, king of Vardhamāna, and
briefly analysed by Eggeling (Catalogue of the Sanskrit Manu-
scripts in the Library of the India Office, 7. 1543–1545, London,
1904). This novel is characterised especially by a long dream,
and by an unmistakable inculcation of Vāiṣṇavite Vēdāntism ;
otherwise it offers but little of interest.
¹ See ‘Reincarnation as a Novelistic Device’, in WZKM. 18. 54–58. For reincar-
nation in a modern Western novel see Margaret Potter’s Flame-Gatherers (London,
1904), and Bain’s Descent of the Sun (London, 1903). The earliest example known
is the Egyptian Tale of the Two Brothers, written in the nineteenth dynasty (1375–
1202 B.C.; tr. Maspero, Contes populaires de l’Égypte ancienne, 3 ed., pp. 3–20,
Paris, 1906).
[Dr. Ogden draws my attention to a reference to Subandhu
in an anthology of a certain Lakṣmaṇa, described by Peterson
(Third Report of Operations in Search of Sanskrit Manuscripts
in the Bombay Circle, p. 35, Bombay, 1887) under the title of
Sūktāvali. The stanza, whose date is thus far unknown, is as
follows (Peterson, op. cit., Appendix, p. 55) :
jīyād gadyasudhādhunyāḥ
subandhuḥ prabhavācalaḥ
yad bhaṅgaślēṣam āsādya
bhaṅgaḥ kavibhir āśritaḥ,
‘may Subandhu, in strength immovable, prevail over the nectarous
stream of prose, for since he gained combination after the break-
ing (of words into their component parts), the breaking (of words
into their component parts) has been employed by poets.’]