A History of Sanskrit Literature c19.s4.4.3

c19.s4.4.3

under the style Suratamañjarī it tells how, after the death of Pradyota and Udayana, Gopāla and Pālaka resigned their tenure of the kingship of Ujjain, how Avantivardhana wedded the heroine, and how the two were protected against a jealous Vidyādhara by the emperor. The only excuse for this absurd position of the tale is the fact of the existence of Book i with its account of the telling of the tale by Guṇāḍhya. In the original, as the Nepalese version shows, the episode of Suratamañjarī led up to the telling by Naravāhanadatta himself of his adventure, which would have clashed with the version of Book i, and the old exordium was, therefore, relegated to an appendix. This view is confirmed by the fact that Somadeva in his Book vi expressly tells us that Naravāhanadatta is relating his adventures in the third person, an admission that he knew that the tale of Suratamañjarī had originally been placed at the beginning of the work. On this point Kṣemendra is silent in his corresponding Madanamañcukā book (vii), but he reveals the fact in the summary (*upasaṁhāra*) with which he ends his poem, for he tells us, for the first time, that the work is supposed to be set forth by Naravāhanadatta to the sage Kaçyapa on a visit.