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The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c14.s1: 1. The Date of Bhavabhūti

The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c14.s1

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1. The Date of Bhavabhūti

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Bhavabhūti tells us in his prologues that he belonged to a family of Brahmins styled Udumbaras, of Padmapura, apparently in Vidarbha, who were of the Kāçyapa Gotra and followed the Taittirīya school of the Black Yajurveda. His full name was Çrīkaṇṭha Nīlakaṇṭha, son of Nīlakaṇṭha and Jātūkarṇī, grandson of Bhaṭṭa Gopāla, fifth in descent from Mahākavi, a Vājapeya sacrificer, famed for his scholarship. He was skilled in grammar, rhetoric, and logic, or perhaps in grammar, logic, and Mīmānsā,¹ if we may believe the legend that he was a pupil of Kumārila preserved in one manuscript of the *Mālatīmādhava*, which complicates the matter by styling the author also Umvekācārya, a commentator on Kumārila’s works. As he expressly mentions his knowledge of the Vedas, the Upaniṣads, Sāmkhya and Yoga, and gives Jñānanidhi as his teacher, we may probably discard this suggestion. The whole three of his plays were performed for the feast of the Lord Kālapriya, who is normally identified with Mahākāla of Ujjayinī, though the scene of the *Mālatīmādhava* is laid in Padmāvati. We may conjecture, therefore, that he left his home and proceeded to Ujjayinī or Padmāvati in search of fortune. From the silence in his dramas on any good luck, it is strange to find that Kalhaṇa in the *Rājatarangiṇī*² expressly asserted that he was a member of the entourage of Yaçovarman of Kanyakubja, who was defeated by Muktāpīḍa Lalitāditya of Kashmir, not earlier, probably, than A.D. 736. A further indication of date is afforded by the reference in Vākpati’s *Gaüḍavaha*¹ to Bhavabhūti’s ocean of poetry; the poem is a prelude to a description in Prākṛit of Yaçovarman’s defeat of a Gauḍa king, and, as it seems never to have been finished, it presumably was interrupted by the king’s own defeat. We must, therefore, place Bhavabhūti somewhere about A.D. 700. The silence of Bāṇa regarding him suggests that he was not known to him, while it is certain that he knew Kālidāsa; the first writer on poetics to cite him is Vāmana.² Verses not in our extant dramas are ascribed to him, so he may have written other works than the three dramas, two Nāṭakas on the Rāma legend and a Prakaraṇa, which we have. His friendship with actors is a trait to which he himself refers, and efforts have been made to trace in his works evidence of revision for stage purposes.

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¹ *Pādavākyapramāṇajña*; see Belvalkar, HOS. XXI. xxxvi. ff. where the attempt to identify Padmapura with Padmāvati as Pavāyā near Narvār and the shrine of Kālapriya with Kālp on the Jumna is disproved. On his Vedic studies, see Keith, JRAS. 1914, pp. 729 f. He knew the *Kāmasūtra*; JBRAS. xviii. 109 f.

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² iv. 144. On the dates, see Stein’s Intr., § 85, and notes on iv. 126 and 134.

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¹ v. 799.

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² i. 2. 12 (anonymous). That Bhavabhūti knew Bhāsa may be assumed; his use of the rare Daṇḍaka metre may be borrowed, and similarities between *Uttararāmacarita*, Act II and *Svapnavāsavadattā*, Act I, &c., exist.

Cites (6)