A History of Sanskrit Literature c14.36

c14.36

The culmination of artificiality is attained by the *Rāghava-pāṇḍavīya*, a poem composed by KAVIRĀJA, who perhaps flourished about A.D. 800. It celebrates simultaneously the actions of Rāghava or Rāma and of the Pāṇḍava princes. The composition is so arranged that by the use of ambiguous words and phrases the story of the *Rāmāyaṇa* and the *Mahābhārata* is told at one and the same time. The same words, according to the sense in which they are understood, narrate the events of each epic. A *tour de force* of this kind is doubtless unique in the literatures of the world. Kavirāja has, however, found imitators in India itself.