Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

A History of Sanskrit Literature c21.s7: 7. The Harṣacarita

A History of Sanskrit Literature c21.s7

Language
English

Contents

7. The Harṣacarita

c21.s7.1

Bāṇa opens the *Harṣacarita*² by a brief summary in verse of the models in poetry whom he admired, the author of the *Bhārata*, the writer of *Vāsavadattā*, the prose of Haricandra—to us merely a name, Sātavāhana's treasure of song, the poem of Pravarasena, doubtless the *Setubandha* in Prākrit, Bhāsa's plays, Kālidāsa's flowers of speech, honey-sweet, and the *Bṛhatkathā*. He records the love of the north for plays on words, of the west for sense, of the south for poetical fancy, Utprekṣā, and of Gauḍa for pomp of syllables, and admits that it is hard to combine, what he evidently holds as ideal, a fresh subject-matter, a diction not common, double meanings obtained without forcing, a dominant sentiment clearly expressed, richness in sonorous words. Then he pronounces his purpose in a stanza often misunderstood:³

c21.s7.2

² Ed. NSP. 1918; trans. E. B. Cowell and F. W. Thomas, London, 1897; ed. A. Führer, BSS. 1909; P. V. Kane, Bombay, 1918; S. D. and A. B. Gajendragadkar, Poona, 1919.

c21.s7.3

³ Nobel (*Indian Poetry*, p. 179) still talks of Āḍhyarāja's *Utsāha*. Pischel (GN. 1901, pp. 485–7) first recognized him as Harṣa.

c21.s7.4

*Āḍhyarājakṛtotsāhair hṛdayasthaiḥ smṛtair api*
*jihvāntaḥ kṛṣyamāṇeva na kavitve pravartate.*

c21.s7.5

‘The mighty deeds of my great king, which fill my heart though remembered only, restrain my tongue and forbid it to proceed to the poet's task.’ This seems a clear intimation that he is to celebrate deeds of Harṣa which he heard of from others, but which none the less filled so fully his heart as almost to prevent utterance.

c21.s7.6.1

Bāṇa then proceeds in chapter i to relate the descent of his family and his own life to the end of his rash youth. Chapter ii carries us no further than the reception of the message and his journey to the royal camp, where he sees and admires so fully the points of the king's great steed that he can hardly exceed his accomplishment of hyperbole in his description of Harṣa himself. Chapter iii relates how Bāṇa, on a visit home, received entreaties to tell of the king and how he complied. A long description of Sthāṇvīçvara, the capital of the race whence the king sprang, leads up to a eulogy of a mythical king Puṣpabhūti and an elaborate description of his friend and associate in adventure, Bhairavācārya. In chapter iv, after a vague allusion to the glorious kings sprung from Puṣpabhūti, we are abruptly carried to Prabhākaravardhana, whose great deeds are lightly alluded to, while the stress of the tale deals first with the queen's behaviour during the time when her first child was yet unborn, the mirth and wild revelry in the city when Rājyavardhana was born, the births of Harṣa and his sister Rājyaçrī, and the wedding of the latter to the Maukhari Grahavarman, evidently an event of great political importance to the family. With great skill, on this picture of happy wedlock and joyful celebration of a glad event follows a chapter of unrelieved tragedy. Rājyavardhana is bidden attack the Hūṇas and departs with his great host;

c21.s7.6.2

Harṣa accompanies him, but is attracted to go hunting, whence he is rudely recalled by learning of the grave illness of his father. He comes back to find the whole capital convulsed with anxiety, and in a series of brilliant pictures we are shown the illness of the fevered king whose anguish nothing can relieve, the certainty of a fatal issue, the suicide of Harṣa's mother whence her son vainly would have stayed her, the final passing away of the great king after an oration to his son whose sincerity can be felt under the embroidery of Bāṇa's imagination, his obsequies, and the deep mourning of the prince. From this stupor he is aroused by the return of Rājyavardhana, who is eager to throw on Harṣa the duties of sovereignty and to abandon himself to grief; Harṣa urges constancy and resolve, and at the moment of indecision the dread news is brought; the Mālava king has slain Grahavarman and imprisoned Rājyaçrī. Rājyavardhana determines to proceed at once to punish the miscreant, commanding Bhaṇḍi to follow with 10,000 horse, and declining Harṣa's aid, lest it be doing too much honour thus to accumulate forces against so worthless a prince. Harṣa remains at home in gloom, swiftly to be deepened by the report of Rājyavardhana's success over the Mālava king but of his treacherous murder by a Gauḍa king; Harṣa would wage immediate war, but Skandagupta gives sage advice, reinforced as usual by many a parallel from legend;

c21.s7.6.3

Harṣa obeys and prepares for war, while omens of evil menace the fate of his enemies. Chapter vii pictures in extraordinary vividness of detail the movements of an Indian army with its utter confusion, its vast masses of impedimenta, its countless camp-followers from the ladies of the court to the meanest hangers-on, the destruction wrought on the countryside, the vain claims of the landholders for exemption from pillage. We hear too of an ambassador from the king of Assam who tenders to the king a present of an umbrella of great beauty, and in due course the king reaches the Vindhya, again described in picturesque and minute detail. Chapter viii presents to us the figure of Nirghāta, a young mountaineer, who is to aid Harṣa in seeking in the Vindhya region for Rājyaçrī, who has escaped from her confinement and is believed to be wandering in that forest region. By his advice the king seeks the holy ascetic Divākaramitra, whose hermitage, with its pious animals who have imbibed the Buddhist faith, is brilliantly portrayed. The king asks his aid, and as the holy man is regretfully admitting that he has not heard of the princess an ascetic enters with the news that a lady is about to burn herself in despair, and asks the holy man to comfort her and stay her deed. The king rushes to find his sister on the point of perishing with her maidens; he restrains her and takes her to the sage. The princess begs to be allowed to end a life that now is worthless to her;

c21.s7.6.4

the sage, however, with wise words restrains her action and bids her live as her brother begs. Harṣa then asks him to come with him and comfort and guide his sister while he carries out his vow of vengeance; this accomplished both will adopt the red garments of the faith. The sage gladly agrees; the party returns to the camp, and the book breaks off in a description of the advent of night while the tale of the recovery of Rājyaçrī is being told.

c21.s7.7

Historically we may say that the work is of minimal value, though in our paucity of actual records it is something even to have this. But chronology is weak and confused, it is extremely difficult to make out the identity of the king of Mālava,¹ and even the Gauḍa king is only indirectly indicated as Çaçāṅka, whose name is given by Hiuen Tsang.¹ Bāṇa has not attempted to make intelligible the course of events which rendered it possible for the Gauḍa king to come into hostile contact with Rājyavardhana in or near Mālava, and it is difficult not to suppose that he desired, writing at a considerable distance of time, to leave what was long past in a vague position. What he does supply to history is the vivid pictures of the army, of the life of the court, of the sectaries and their relations to the Buddhists, and the avocations of a Brahmin and his friends.

c21.s7.8

¹ *Cf.* Smith, EHI. pp. 350 ff.; R. Mookerji, *Harsha*, pp. 50 ff.

c21.s7.9

¹ For a defence of him see Majumdar, *Early Hist. of Bengal*, pp. 16 ff.

Linked texts (5)