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A History of Sanskrit Literature c21.s1: 1. The Age and Works of Daṇḍin

A History of Sanskrit Literature c21.s1

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English

1. The Age and Works of Daṇḍin

c21.s1.1

OF Daṇḍin we know really nothing save what can be gathered from his works and late tradition. The latter asserts his authorship of three books, and it is generally conceded that of these we have two, the *Daçakumāracarita* and the *Kāvyādarça*. The third has been variously identified; the view of Pischel that it was the *Mṛcchakaṭikā* was based in effect merely on the general resemblance of social relations described in the drama and in the *Daçakumāracarita* and the anonymous citation of a line found in the drama by the *Kāvyādarça*. Now that we know that the line is found also in Bhāsa, the argument is less strong than ever. But it is very dubious if the *Chando-viciti* referred to in the *Kāvyādarça* is intended by Daṇḍin to be his own work, and even if it were it is possible that it and the *Kālapariccheda* also alluded to were mere chapters to be appended to the *Kāvyādarça*. Even the identity of authorship of the *Kāvyādarça* and the *Daçakumāracarita* has been doubted on various grounds. It has been pointed out¹ that the vulgarity and occasional obscenity of language in the romance accord ill with the insistence in the *Kāvyādarça* on freedom from coarseness, and certain real or alleged inelegancies of diction have been asserted to be impossible in an author who wrote on poetics. But neither contention is of serious value. Apart from the notorious difference between precept and practice, it is perfectly possible and even probable that the romance came from the youth of Daṇḍin and the *Kāvyādarça* from his more mature judgement, while most of the alleged errors in grammar may safely be denied or at least are of the type which other poets permit themselves.²

c21.s1.2

¹ Agashe, ed. pp. xxv ff.

c21.s1.3

² The ascription to him of the *Avantisundarīkathā*, of which we have a fragment, is quite implausible; S. K. Dé, IHQ. i. 31 ff.; iii. 394 ff.

c21.s1.4

The date of Daṇḍin is still open to dispute, and if the *Kāvyādarça* were not to be taken into account would be even more difficult to determine than it actually is. If, for reasons which will be given later, we place the *Kāvyādarça* definitely before Bhāmaha (*c.* A. D. 700), there is no reason to assert that he wrote much earlier, and the chief impression conveyed by the *Daçakumāracarita* is that its geography¹ contemplates a state of things anterior to the empire of Harṣavardhana, and that its comparative simplicity suggests a date anterior to the work of Subandhu and Bāṇa. Nor is there anything to suggest a later date. The corruption of manners adduced by Wilson in favour of the legend which makes him an ornament of the court of Bhoja of Dhārā, so far as it was real, merely represents a regular feature of one aspect of Indian life.

c21.s1.5

¹ Collins, *The Geographical Data of the Raghuvamśa and Daśakumāracarita* (1907), p. 46.

Cites (7)