A History of Sanskrit Literature c17.s1.43

c17.s1.43

Less original is the work of another Kashmirian poet, a certain Çilhaṇa,² who may also have worked in Bengal. It is clear that he was an admirer of Bhartṛhari; he borrows from him, and when he does not reproduce he alters, partly, no doubt, in order to adapt the standpoint of an earnest Vaiṣṇava to that of a Çaiva like Bhartṛhari; one stanza is borrowed from the *Nāgānanda* of Harṣa. Çilhaṇa is essentially bent on glorifying by his compilation, to which he doubtless added original matter of his own, the merits of asceticism, and there is much in him that is common to all three great religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. It would be difficult to assert that he is a great poet; his matter is more interesting than his manner, which is competent but hardly more than that. His date is uncertain, but before the *Saduktikarṇāmṛta* (1205), in which he is cited. Pischel has not unnaturally seen in him a mistake for Bilhaṇa, and one of Bilhaṇa’s verses is actually found, at least in some manuscripts of the *Çataka*. Nor can the suggestion be positively disproved; it is true that Bilhaṇa is not usually a compiler, but that is not to say that he did not become one in old age: he owned wealth, as the *Vikramāṅkadevacarita* proves, and his eroticism is established by the *Caurasuratapañcāçikā*; but we know from his epic that he grew weary of the world in old age, and that he passes over his erotic poem in silence, so that we might easily believe that he renounced wealth and love and sought the delights of solitude and devotion to God. But in the absence of any old tradition we cannot press Pischel's suggestion.