A History of Sanskrit Literature c19.s1.4

c19.s1.4

The legend seems to have been known already in some form to Bāṇa, and therefore must be moderately old; how far and in what form it goes back to Guṇāḍhya, it is idle to say. The location of Guṇāḍhya is clearly different in the two sources, for it is vain to seek to make out that there has been confusion between Pratiṣṭhāna on the Godāvarī and a place of like name at the junction of the Ganges and the Yamunā. What is clear is that Ujjain or Kauçāmbī was the scene whence Guṇāḍhya derived much of his inspiration, which is a very different thing from the place where he was in royal honour and composed his work. The cennexion with Sātavāhana, which the Kashmirian recensions suggest, is borne out to some extent by certain facts. In the first place, the Sātavāhanas were at one time patrons of Prākrit as opposed to Sanskrit literature; the evidence of the inscriptions¹ shows that Sanskrit was used by their Kṣatrapa rivals before they adopted it, and the Māhārāṣṭrī lyric flourished under them. Secondly, the mention of the study of Sanskrit in this connexion does suggest that there was a tradition regarding the time when the Sātavāhanas determined to copy the Kṣatrapas and Sanskrit became popular in court. Further we cannot go.