A History of the Mahrattas v1.c5.s4.26

v1.c5.s4.26

Among the more noteworthy of Eknāth’s successors was his grandson Muktēshvar, who was born in 1608 and was the first great poet to write purely for the sake of literature. His compositions, based upon old Hindu myths and stories of divine incarnations, are mostly epic poems, among them being the Rāmāyana, written in the shlōk metre, which is remarkable for its narrative and descriptive power, the Mahābhārata in the ovi metre, of which only four or five books are extant, the Gajendra-Mōksha, Hanumāntākhyana, Arjuna-Kāma-Pūrtī, Vishvamitra Bhōjana, Harischandrākhyana, and a rendering of the Bhagavad Gīta. Muktēshvar was one of the first Marāthī poets to employ Sanskrit metres, although much of his work is in the old ovi metre, which had hitherto shared with the ābhanga and dindi measures the chief popularity among vernacular writers. Besides the works just mentioned, Muktēshvar composed two poems of a different character, the Ekanātha Charitra and the Murkāchi Lakshane, ‘ Characteristics of a Fool,’ The latter throws valuable light upon the social conditions of the poet’s age.