A History of Sanskrit Literature c16.s3.1

c16.s3.1

Of both lyric and gnomic poets whose works are lost, we derive knowledge from the anthologies, which have yielded many of the citations of fine lines already made. Themselves often of comparatively late date, they preserve the work of much earlier poets, though unhappily in many cases of the authors mentioned we have no means of determining the period of their activity. Of these anthologies the oldest apparently is that edited by Dr. F. W. Thomas as the *Kavīndravacanasamuccaya*¹ from a Nepalese MS. of the twelfth century. Sections on the Buddha and Avalokiteçvara remind us of its provenance, but otherwise it contains the same material as the other texts, verses on a wide variety of subjects, love and other passions, the conduct of life, practical wisdom, and moral and political maxims. None of the poets who composed its 525 stanzas is later than 1000 A. D. Of the next century (1205) is the *Saduktikarṇāmṛta*,² or *Sūktikarṇāmṛta*, of Çrīdharadāsa, son of Vaṭudāsa, both servants of Lakṣmaṇasena of Bengal, an anthology including excerpts from 446 poets, largely of course of Bengal, including Gaṅgādhara and five others who can be placed in the period 1050–1150. Jalhaṇa, son of Lakṣmīdeva, and, like his father, minister of Kṛṣṇa who ascended the throne in 1247, wrote the *Subhāṣitamuktāvalī*,³ which has come down in a longer and a shorter recension. It is carefully arranged according to such subjects as riches, generosity, fate, sorrow, love, royal service, &c., and is especially valuable in its section on poets and poetry which gives us definite information on a number of authors.