A History of Sanskrit Literature c12.s4.7

c12.s4.7

Admitting that these stories taken over from the epic gave little scope for the highest qualities of poetry, and that, as in Bhāravi, plot and characterization are of no great account, Māgha unquestionably has no mean poetical merits, though we need not accept the eulogies of later critics who claimed that he united the merits of his greatest rivals. If he lacks the conciseness, the calm serenity and dignity of Bhāravi at his best, he possesses much luxuriance of expression and imagination, and in the many love passages of his epic sweetness and prettinesses abound. He admits directly his indebtedness to the *Kāmasūtra* and exhibits intimate knowledge of its details in a manner which western taste finds tedious, while Indian opinion—*homo sum, humani nil a me alienum puto*—accepts it with admiration. The worst of his sins is his deplorable exhibition in xix of his power of twisting language. He actually compares the array of the army to the appearance of a Mahākāvya when verses are put in the form of the figures Sarvatobhadra, Cakra, Gomūtrikā, &c., and such figures he illustrates in his poem. No doubt we hear in the Alexandrian age, as in later Roman poetry,¹ of such things as Sotadean verses to be read backwards, of Simmias making poems, *technopaignia*, in the form of an axe, or a nightingale's egg, of Dosiadas's similar feat with an altar, and so on. It may be that these tricks arose from the practice of writing inscriptions on swords or leaves, but in any case Māgha shows himself devoid of taste; so also in the construction of such a stanza as xix. 3 where the first line has no consonant but *j*, the second only *t*, the third *bh*, and the last *r* with a final Visarga. More clever is the speech of the envoy in xv which begins: