A History of Sanskrit Literature c13.29

c13.29

But a triumph of misplaced ingenuity was attained in the twelfth century by three writers. The first perhaps in time was Sandhyākara Nandin, whose *Rāmapālacarita*⁴ is intended to refer in each stanza to the history of Rāma and also to the king Rāmapāla, who flourished at the close of the eleventh century in Bengal. The second was apparently the Jain writer Dhanaṁjaya,⁵ perhaps called Çrutakīrti, a Digambara, who wrote between 1123 and 1140; the third Kavirāja,⁶ styled also Sūri or Paṇḍita, whose real name was perhaps Mādhava Bhaṭṭa, and whose patron, as he obligingly tells us, was Kāmadeva, probably the Kādamba king (1182–97). Both these authors perpetrated poems styled *Rāghavapāṇḍavīya* in which we are told simultaneously the stories of the *Rāmāyaṇa* and the *Mahābhārata*. The feat, which at first sight appears incredible, is explained without special difficulty by the nature of Sanskrit. Treating each line of verse as a unit, it is possible to break it up very variously into words by grouping together the syllables. Then the meaning of compounds is often vitally affected by the mode in which the relations between the words composing them are conceived, even when the words are understood in the same sense and the compound is analysed into the same terms. Further, and this is of special importance, the Sanskrit lexica allow to words a very large variety of meanings and they supply a considerable number of very strange words which have a remarkable appearance of being more or less manufactured, in the sense that the meaning or form ascribed may have been derived from some mere misunderstanding or in some cases from a mere misreading. The way for such works as these two poems was paved by the *double entendres* of Subandhu and Bāṇa, and Kavirāja expressly states that he claims to be unrivalled by any but these two in the use of twisted language (*vakrokti*). The *Rāghavanaiṣadhīya* of Haradatta Sūri, of unknown date, performs the same feat for the tale of Rāma and Nala, and a doubtless quite late *Rāghavapāṇḍavīyayādavīya* by Cidambara adds the absurdity of telling three stories, the third being the legend of the *Bhāgavata Purāṇa*.¹ The deplorable folly of such works is obvious, but it remains true that Kavirāja at least shows some very fair talent and might have written something worthy of consideration if his taste had not led him to this extravagance.