Page:The Harsa-carita of Bana (1897).djvu/16

 the hand of Durgā the daughter of the snowy mountain"; but under this mythological allusion is concealed a reference to a contemporary conquest, since the words may be also translated, "in our monarch a supreme lord has taken tribute from an inaccessible land of snowy mountains"; and there are several similar allusions to the king's exploits in the same passage. Prof. Bühler remarks that the inscriptions of Amcuvarman (three of which are dated Samvat 34 and 39) prove that the Crī-harsa era was introduced into Nepal during the lifetime of the great King of Thānesar and Kanoj, who held the whole of Northern India from 606 to 648 A. D. "If an Indian prince adopts a new foreign era, especially one founded by a contemporary, that may be considered as almost a certain proof that the borrower had to submit to the Caka-kartri or establisher. of the era ." Similarly in p. 57 where we have a description of Harsa's reluctance to become king, till the Goddess of the Royal prosperity herself forced him to mount the throne, in spite of his previous vow of austerity, we are at once reminded of Hiuen Thsang's story that Harsa at the advice of a Bodhisattva, refrained from mounting the simhāsana. So too in p. 168 where "the rising clear-flecked moon (cacānka) shone like the pointed hump of (Diva's tame bull, when blotted by mud scattered by his broad horn?," the commentator himself supplies us with the allusion, as he tells us in his note on the opening verses of chap, vi., that Cacmāka was the name of the dishonoured Gauda king against whom Harsa was marching. Hiuen Thsang states that Rajyavardhana was treacherously killed by Qasamka (Che-chang-kia), the ruler of Karnasuvarna in Eastern India.

But beside these veiled historical allusions, the work has another interest from the vivid picture which it offers of the condition of Indian society and the manners and customs of the period. Bana is not a mere rhetorician; his descriptions