Page:The Sanskrit Drama.djvu/237

232 poets of name. He married Avantisundarī of the Cāhamāna family, and was a moderate Çaiva.

In the Karpūramañjarī, probably his first play since it was produced at the request of his wife, and not a king, he refers to himself as the teacher of Nirbhaya or Nirbhara, who was clearly the Pratihāra king, Mahendrapāla of Mahodaya or Kanyakubja, of whom we have records in A.D. 893 and 907. The Bālarāmāyaṇa was produced at his request. But he seems then to have visited another court, for the Viddhaçālabhañjikā was produced for the Kalacuri king, Yuvarāja Keyūravarṣa of Tripurī. But, as the unfinished Bālabhārata was written for Mahīpāla, successor of Mahendrapala, whose records begin in A.D. 914, we may assume that he returned to the court of the Pratihāras and died there. In the Bălarāmāyaṇa he speaks of six of his works, not apparently including the Viddhaçālabhañjikā and the Bālabhārata, and in fact we have many stanzas from him regarding famous authors, though of course the proof of derivation from this Rājaçekara is not always complete.

The Bālarāmāyaṇa shows to perfection Rājaçekhara's own estimate of himself. He traces his poetic descent from Vālmīki, through Bhartṛmeṇṭha and Bhavabhūti, but it is not clear that Bhartṛmeṇṭha must be assumed to have dramatized the work, and the little we know of this obscure person merely shows that he wrote an epic, the Hayagrīvavadha, while his date is involved in the problems of Vikramāditya and Mātṛgupta.

5. The Dramas of Rājaçekhara

The Bālarāmāyaṇa is a Mahānāṭaka, that is one in ten acts, and the author, to add to the horror of the length, has expanded the prologue to almost the dimensions of an act, celebrating his non-existent merits, and has expanded each act to almost the dimensions of a Nāṭikā. The whole has 741 stanzas, and of these no less than 203 are in the 19-syllable Çārdūlavikrīdita and 89 in the Sṛagdharā, which has two more syllables in each pada or 84 in a stanza. The play has a certain novelty, because