Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v1.c47.27

v1.c47.27

The other terminus is furnished by the date of one the commentaries on the *Rasa-mañjarī*, called the *Rasamañjarī-vikāsa* (or *vilāsa*) by Gopāla (alias Vopadeva), son of Nṛsiṃha, which is expressly dated in 1428 A.D.¹ In the *Śārṅgadhara-paddhati*, which was compiled about 1363 A.D., several verses are cited under the name of one Bhānu-paṇḍita (790, 973, 1032, 1271, 3328, 3685), none of which, however, can be traced in the known works of our author. Jalhaṇa whose anthology was compiled about the middle of the 13th century, also quotes and ascribes to a Vaidya-bhānu-paṇḍita as many as 18 verses, which are similarly untraceable, but two of which are also to be found under the same citation in the *Paddhati* (973 = 48a and 3328 = 95a). It may, however, be presumed that the author of the *Rasa-mañjarī* was not unknown at this period, and that in the anthologies the epithets *vaidya* and *paṇḍita* were annexed to an earlier or later Bhānu in order to distinguish him from our author, whose namesake he was¹. If this inference is permissible, then we may place Bhānudatta earlier than the middle of the 14th century, but later than the 12th, a closer approximation than which cannot at present be made.