Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v1.c6.17

v1.c6.17

If we get the lower limit to the date of Bharata’s work at 8th century A.D., the other limit is very difficult to settle, when we consider that there were apparently two versions, one based on the other. But it is not clear what weight should be placed on the testimony of Bhavabhūti; for if in the first quarter of the 8th century Bharata was known to him as a *sūtra-kāra*, it is not intelligible how at the end of the same century, Udbhaṭa makes use of Bharata’s *kārikā*, and Lollaṭa and others, immediately following, apparently comment on the same text. The short space of less than half a century is not enough to obliterate all signs of the older version and replace it entirely with a new *kārikā*-text which, to all intents and purposes, is taken as the only authoritative version in later times, and in which, strangely enough, we find still lingering traces of the earlier *sūtra*-text. The only possible explanation of Bhavabhūti’s reference is that the historical Bharata, who was the *sūtra-kāra* on the three arts of dancing, singing and instrumental music, had already, in Bhavabhūti’s time, become identified with the mythical Bharata; for the passage in the *Uttara-carita* gives an obviously mythical account, through the mouth of Lava, that *bhagavān* Vālmīki, having composed his story of *Rāma*, gave it to *bhagavān* Bharata (the *sūtra-kāra* on the three arts and apparently the *nāṭyācārya* of the gods) who revised it and got it acted through celestial nymphs.