Page:The Sanskrit Drama.djvu/99

94 verse in the Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa, and whose Prākrit is assuredly and unquestionably older in character. It is useless to seek to estimate by the evidence of the Prākrit whether Bhāsa is more closely allied in date to Kālidāsa than to Açvaghoṣa, because changes in speech and the representation of them in literature are matters which do not in the slightest degree permit of exact valuation in terms of years. The most that can be said is that it may be held without improbability that Bhāsa is nearer to Kālidāsa's period than to Açvaghoṣa's.

An effort at more exact determination is made by Professor Konow on the ground that Bhāsa's dramas in part deal with the story of Udayana, of which Ujjayini was specially fond, as we know from Kālidāsa. Hence we may assume that the home of the poet was Ujjayinī, an assumption which obviously is not legitimate in any degree. Further we may assume that he lived under one of the Western Kṣatrapas, which again goes too far. Now the usual ending of a drama is not regularly observed in Bhāsa's dramas; the introductory question is found only in the Avimāraka, Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa, Bālacarita, and Dūtavākya. The description of the final benediction as Bharatavākya is omitted in the Madhyamavyāyoga, where Viṣṇu is praised; in the Dūtaghaṭotkaca, where his commands are given; in the Pañcarātra, where the wish is expressed that the king (rājasiṅha) should rule the whole earth; and in the Ūrubhan̄ga, where the wish is that the prince should conquer his foes and rule the earth. In the other plays a change of form of the Bharatavākya is asserted; in the Karṇabhāra there is the desire for the disappearance of misfortune; in the Pratimānāṭaka the wish is that the king may fare as Rāma who was reunited with Sītā and his kinsmen; in the Avimāraka, the Abhiṣekanāṭaka, and the Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa, that the king should, after destroying his foes, rule the whole earth, while in the Svapnavāsavadattā, Dūtavākya, and Bālacarita, the wish is for universal rule. This suggests that for a time the king reigned in peace; then enemies arose and disturbed his power; finally he again won the upper hand, and his friends could without absurdity pray for his attaining imperial rank. This would agree with the history of the Kṣatrapa Rudrasiṅha, who held from 181-8, and