A History of Sanskrit Literature c14.s6.18

c14.s6.18

We need not doubt that Kalhaṇa endeavoured to attain his own ideal—'that noble-minded poet alone merits praise whose word, like the sentence of a judge, keeps free from love or hatred in recording the past.' His treatment of Harṣa supports this impression, for his father had been a trusted minister and evidently fell with his patron, but Kalhaṇa does not ignore the appalling cruelties of this Indian Nero, however much he pities his end. His description of incidents in recent history appears to achieve a high standard of accuracy, and is filled with those small touches which imply personal knowledge or acceptance of the testimony of eye-witnesses, as when he recounts the details of the self-immolation of Sūryamatī or of Sussala's murder.⁴ The popular sayings and anecdotes which he records bear the stamp of being taken from life. Excellent also is his delineation of character, and the change from the manner of the earlier to that of the later books is significant. The former give but the typical poetical description of heroes such as Tuñjina and Pravarasena, the latter present vivid personalities such as Tuṅga, Ananta, Harṣa and Sussala; there is nothing like this in Bāṇa, Padmagupta, or Bilhaṇa. In the minor figures his humour, sometimes Rabelaisian, has full play, as in his picture of his contemporary Kularāja, whose abilities had raised him from the rank of a bravo to that of city prefect. His accuracy in genealogical information is conspicuous, and his topography most favourably distinguishes him from such a historian as Livy, who apparently never looked at one of the battlefields he described.