A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c19.s1.11

c19.s1.11

The 'curious-minded' Pallava ruler of Kāñchī, Mahendravarman I, found time to compose two delectable farces (prahasanas), Mattavilāsa and Bhagavadajjuka, which succeed in turning the laugh against the Kāpālikas and Buddhist Bhikshus, and afford a pleasing contrast to the growing intensity of sectarian feeling in his day. The authorship of Bhagavadajjuka is, however, doubtful, and the work has been attributed to Bodhāyana. The relatively dry subject of prosody was expounded in Chandoviciti-Janāśraya, perhaps by Mādhavavarman II of the Vishnukundin line (whose title was Janāśraya). If tradition preserved in the Avantisundarikathā is true, the illustrious Dandin was the great-grandson of Dāmodara, a friend of Bhāravi, and adorned the Pallava court of Narasimhavarman I (630-68). The kathā just mentioned is itself a long prose work which has only been preserved in part; the kernel of the extant Daśakumāracarita is most likely a part of this work, its beginning and end being by other hands. The superb manual of rhetoric Kāvyādarśa, by which Dandin is best known, marks an epoch in the history of literary criticism as it made the Vaidarbhi style the touchstone of good poetry. It also formed the basis of Daṇḍiyalaṅgāram in Tamil.