A History of Sanskrit Literature c9.s5.4

c9.s5.4

An atmosphere of this kind is unquestionably favourable, if not to the highest poetry, at least to the production of elaborate verse, and the care demanded from those who are exposed to keen criticism cannot but produce excellent results in the case of men naturally gifted, though on the other hand it leads to exaggerated love of style with inevitable tasteless extravagance. If under such a system Maecenases produce few Vergils, they are responsible for a plentiful crop of Valerii Flacci, and to the kings of India¹ we unquestionably owe most of the poets of repute; patronage by the king was at once the reward of skill in panegyric and the means of obtaining the leisure for serious composition and a measure of publicity for the works produced. It was the duty of the king to bridge the gulf between wealth and poetic talent, of the poet to save his patron from the night of oblivion which else must assuredly settle on him when his mortal life closed. At the royal courts poets vied in eager rivalry with one another; probably in quite early times there were practised such arts as the composition of verses to complete a stanza when one verse was given, and the production of extempore poems on a given topic. The festival of Sarasvatī each month afforded opportunities for displays in honour of the patroness of poetry and the arts. Fortunately, too, for the poets, kings were willing to claim renown for skill in poetry; we have seen that his panegyrist thought well to ascribe fame in this sphere to Rudradāman and we shall see that the great Gupta Emperor Samudragupta strove for renown as a man of letters.² Harṣa not only patronized Bāṇa, but claimed the authorship of dramas and poems, though unkind hints were prevalent that others were the true begetters of his literary offspring.³ Four hundred years later Bhoja of Dhārā was more fortunate, for we have no real knowledge to disprove his claim to polymathy exhibited in a large variety of works. In the twelfth century⁴ the court of Lakṣmaṇasena revived the glory of Harṣa's patronage, for besides the famous Jayadeva, other poets such as Umāpatidhara, Dhoī, and Govardhana wrote with acceptance. The kings of Kashmir often distinguished themselves by generosity to their laureates, (*kavirāja*) and to such enlightened activity we owe Somadeva's *Kathāsaritsāgara*. Yet it is worth remembering that we cannot prove any royal patron for Kālidāsa, greatest of Indian poets, or even for Kalhaṇa, the one historian of real merit in Sanskrit literature. Nor, of course, was royal generosity confined to Sanskrit poetry; to a king, Hāla or Sātavāhana, is ascribed the anthology of Māhārāṣṭrī verse, and Vākpatirāja wrote his epic, *Gaüḍavaha*, for Yaçovarman of Kanauj, thus assuring him an immortality to survive his defeat at the hands of Lalitāditya of Kashmir. So, too, if we believe tradition, it was perhaps the patronage of Kaniṣka which produced the first great work of the court epic preserved to us, the *Buddhacarita* of Açvaghoṣa.