Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v1.c6.34

v1.c6.34

The lower limit of the date of Bharata's work, therefore, can be provisionally shifted back to the fourth or fifth century A.D., while it is almost certain that it existed in its present shape in the 8th century A.D. The upper limit cannot be put too early, because of the mention of *śakas*, *yavanas*, *pahlavas* and other tribes, and probably does not go beyond the commencement of the Christian era. It is difficult to settle the relative age of the *sūtra* and the *kārikā*-texts; but if the tendency towards *sūtra-bhāṣya* style may be presumed to have been generally prevelant in the last few centuries B.C., then the suspected *sūtra*-text of Bharata belongs apparently to this period¹. It was certainly much earlier than the present *kārikā*-text, in which Bharata already appears as a mythical sage as an expounder of the *nāṭya-veda*.