Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v1.c23.21

v1.c23.21

The date of Rājaśekhara has been settled with some exactitude. We learn from his four extant plays¹ that he was a teacher (*upādhyāya*) to a king named Mahendrapāla (otherwise known as Nirbhaya or Nibbhaya), and was also patronised by his son and successor Mahīpāla². We also understand that one of his plays, the *Bāla-bhārata*, was performed at a place called Mahôdaya, for which he shows a partiality also in his *Kavya-mīmāṃsā*. Fleet has shown³ that this Mahīpāla should be indentified with the Mahīpāla of the Asni inscription, dated 917 A.D., and he agrees with Pischel⁴ that Mahôdaya is another name for Kānyakubja or Kanauj⁵, with which place this king, as well as Mahendrapāla, is connected in the Siyadoni inscription⁶. It has also been shown by Aufrecht⁷ and Pischel⁸ that Mahendrapāla, whose date appears to be 903-07 A.D. from Kielhorn’s summing up of the names of the four sovereigns of Kanauj as presented by the Siyadoni inscription, went also by the *biruda* of Nirbhara or Nirbhaya (Nibbhara or Nibbhaya in the Prakrit form), a fact of which Fleet seems to have been unaware⁹. From these evidences, it is clear that Rājaśekhara must have flourished in the beginning of the 10th century, and probably also lived towards the end of the 9th. This is also supported by the fact that the latest writer quoted by Rājaśekhara are Ratnākara and Ānandavardhana, who belong to the middle or second half of the 9th century, while the earliest writer to mention Rājaśekhara appears to be the Jaina Somadeva, whose Yaśastilaka is dated 960 A.D.¹