A History of Sanskrit Literature c13.9

c13.9

Not much later falls the *Rāvaṇārjunīya*² or *Ārjunarāvaṇīya* of Bhaumaka, also styled Bhīma, Bhūma, or Bhūmaka, who won fame in Kashmīr. The epic in twenty-seven cantos tells the tale, found in the *Rāmāyaṇa*, of the strife between Arjuna Kārtavīrya and Rāvaṇa, but as in the case of Bhaṭṭi, whose example may have been followed, though the dates are indecisive, the aim is to illustrate rules of grammar. The pedantic side predominates in the later work, *Kavirahasya*³ of Halāyudha, which is really meant to illustrate the modes of formation of the present tense of Sanskrit roots, but incidentally serves as a eulogy of the Rāṣṭrakūṭa king Kṛṣṇa III (*c.* A. D. 940–56).