A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c19.s1.9

c19.s1.9

Sundara Pāṇdya's *Nitidvishashṭikā* must be older than the sixth century; the author's identity remains a mystery, but the work has great merit and its verses deserve a high place in the literature of *nīti* (policy). Kumāradāsa's long poem in twenty cantos, *Jānakīharaṇa*, handles the familiar story of Rāma; the author was clearly an admirer of Kālidāsa and his work contains many echoes of that great poet. Tradition, late and not very reliable, identifies Kumāradāsa with a king of Ceylon who ruled in the sixth century. This poem has had a curious history; till recently it was only known from a Sinhalese paraphrase and a retranslation of it into Sanskrit in a poem of fifteen cantos by a certain Rājasundara (c. 1600), but the original was recovered recently in Malabar. Much better known and of greater literary merit is Bhāravi's *Kirātārjunīyam* which describes, in eighteen cantos, the conflict between Śiva and Arjuna ending in the latter's attainment of the valuable weapon *Pāśupata astra*. The poem is remarkable for its vigour and its imagery. In an inscription dated 634 the poet is mentioned as having attained great fame already. Tradition connects him with Vishnuvardhana, the founder of the line of Eastern Chālukyas, and with Simhavishnu of Kāñchi; it also affirms that the Ganga king Durvinita annotated the fifteenth canto of the poem: but all this is very doubtful.