Page:The Sanskrit Drama.djvu/173

 VII

CANDRA, HARṢA, AND MAHENDRAVIKRAMAVARMAN

1. Candra or Candraka

Some mystery exists as to the identity and character of Candra as a dramatist. We have in a Tibetan version a Lokānanda, a Buddhist drama telling of a certain Maṇicūḍa, who handed over his wife and children to a Brahmin as a sign of supreme generosity, which is ascribed to Candragomin, the grammarian, in whose Çiṣyalekhā is found a verse ascribed to Candragopin in the Subhāṣitāvali. If this is the dramatist Candaka or Candraka, who is placed by Kalhaṇa under Tuñjina of Kashmir, and who rivalled the author of the Mahābharata in a drama, is wholly uncertain. The grammarian must have lived before A.D. 650, as he is cited in the Kāçikā Vṛtti though not by name; a more precise date it is impossible to give, for his reference to a victory of a Jarta over the Hūṇas cannot be made precise until we know what Jāṭ prince is referred to, though Yaçodharman has been suggested. The identification by Lévi of Candra with a person of that name mentioned by I-Tsing as living in his time is seemingly impossible, though I-Tsing ascribes to him the verse found in the Ciṣyalekhā mentioned above; the verse is lacking in the Tibetan version and I-Tsing may have made a slip. His contemporary seems to have been a Candradāsa, and to have dramatized the Viçvantara legend.

To Candaka is ascribed in the Subhāṣitāvali a fine verse of martial tone:

eṣā hi raṇagatasya dṛḍhā pratijñā: drakṣyanti yan na ripavo jaghanaṁ hayānām

yuddheṣu bhāgyacapaleṣu na me pratijñā: daivaṁ yad icchati jayaṁ ca parājayaṁ ca.