A History of Sanskrit Literature c14.37

c14.37

A Mahākāvya which is as yet only known in MS. is the *Navasāhasāṅka-charita*, a poem celebrating the doings of Navasāhasāṅka, otherwise Sindhurāja, a king of Mālava, and composed by a poet named PADMAGUPTA, who lived about 1000 A.D. It consists of eighteen cantos, containing over 1500 stanzas in nineteen different metres. The poet refrains from the employment of metrical tricks; but he greatly impedes the progress of the narrative by introducing interminable speeches and long-winded descriptions.