A History of Sanskrit Literature c15.s1.8

c15.s1.8

The question of compilation is more difficult still, and it seems unnecessary to exclude the probability that in his collections Bhartṛhari may have included work not his own, as well as verses composed by himself. Indeed, it would be difficult to find any convincing ground for suggesting that this is not the case with the *Nīti* and *Vairāgya Çatakas*.² The case of the *Çṛṅgāra-çataka*³ is different, for unquestionably there is a definite structure which may be, of course, the work of a skilled compiler, but which more naturally suggests the product of a creative mind. The Çataka opens with pictures of the beauty of women and the passion of love as it varies with the changing seasons of the year, and the joys of its fruition. We pass thence to stanzas in which the joys of dalliance are contrasted with the abiding peace brought to man by penance and wisdom, and finally the poet reaches the conviction that beauty is a delusion and a snare, that woman is sweet but poisonous as a snake on man’s way in life, that love leads only to worldly attachment, and that the true end of man lies in renunciation and in God, Çiva or Brahman. We may, therefore, adopt with moderate certainty the view that in this Çataka we have much more individual work than in the other two, though we need not suppose that Bhartṛhari held any views—quite foreign to Indian poets—which would have prevented him from including in his poem a predecessor’s work, and still less, of course, a slightly improved edition of such work. Some weight must certainly be allowed to the fact that the Indian tradition is consistent, and that it cannot be explained as in the case of the *Cāṇakya Nītiçāstra* by the fame of a name, for Bhartṛhari stands isolated.