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A History of Sanskrit Literature c21.s4: 4. Subandhu

A History of Sanskrit Literature c21.s4

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4. Subandhu

c21.s4.1

Of Subandhu we know as little as of Daṇḍin. He appears first in Bāṇa who mentions in the introduction to the *Harṣacarita* the *Vāsavadattā* as quelling the pride of poets, and in the *Kādambarī* in celebrating his own work he uses the epithet *atidvayī*, 'surpassing two,' which is believed to refer to the *Vāsavadattā*² and the *Bṛhatkathā* of Guṇāḍhya. That Subandhu's work is meant is not now very seriously questioned, Peterson himself having long since withdrawn his suggestion to that effect. Subandhu's name appears with those of Bhāsa, Kālidāsa, and Haricandra in Vākpatirāja's *Gaüḍavaha*; he is classed with Meṇṭha, Bhāravi, and Bāṇa by Maṅkha in his *Çrīkaṇṭhacarita*; and Kavirāja in the *Rāghavapāṇḍavīya* boasts that Subandhu, he, and Bāṇa are masters of ambiguous diction; while a Kanarese inscription of A.D. 1168 ascribes to him mastery in Kāvya. Quite late tradition makes him a contemporary of the legendary Vikramāditya and a nephew of Vararuci. But the only reference to that monarch shows him to have been in the remote past, and the date of Subandhu must depend on his priority to Bāṇa, which is borne out by a mass of obvious coincidences in diction, and on the other hand by his own literary allusions. Of the many works known to the poet most are decidedly older, such as the epics, the *Kāmasūtra*, the *Chandoviciti* section of the *Nāṭyaçāstra*, and the *Bṛhatkathā*; but he knew well not only the Upaniṣads but also the Nyāya and Mīmāṅsā schools of philosophy and Buddhism. One passage enables us to fix an upper date with some certainty; he describes a maiden as *nyāyasthitim iva Uddyotakarasvarūpām Bauddhasaṁgatim iva Alaṁkārabhūṣitām*. It is impossible to doubt that Uddyotakara is referred to; perhaps the reference following is to Dharmakīrti, the Buddhist logician, as Çivarāma asserts, because we know now that Uddyotakara possibly used and was used by Dharmakīrti, and nothing can be more natural than to find the two together. This means,¹ however, in view of the evidence available as to Dharmakīrti's date, that Subandhu must be placed in the second quarter of the seventh century and that he was only a contemporary of Bāṇa whose work came to fruition before Bāṇa's. Unlike that author, he cannot have enjoyed the patronage of Harṣavardhana, and we may presume that his activity was carried on at some other capital.

c21.s4.2

² Ed. F. Hall, BI. 1859; South Indian text, ed. L. H. Gray, CUIS. 8, 1913, with translation. Cf. Peterson, *Subhāṣitāvali*, p. 133.

c21.s4.3

¹ Keith, JRAS. 1914, pp. 1102 ff. The *Alaṁkāra* is not to be regarded as a work on poetics.

Cites (10)