A History of Indian Literature v3.c35.s6.63

v3.c35.s6.63

¹ Vitthalaśāstrin testified in 1866 that the descendants of Kālidāsa then living at Dhārā possessed 26 cantos of the Raghuvamśa (Pandit, Vol. 1, p. 141), whilst Shankar P. Pandit had heard about it in 1874 (Raghuvamśa Ed., Preface, p. 15) that somebody in Ujjain possessed cantos XX-XXV of the Raghuvamśa. But till now nothing has come to light about these cantos that are claimed to have existed before. The commentaries too know only 19 cantos. Hillebrandt, Kālidāsa, p. 42, considers the last two cantos (XVIII and XIX) as spurious, simply because they appear to him of little value and devoid of taste. But since Mallinātha has commented upon these cantos, Winternitz does not consider them as spurious, especially because Hillebrandt has not refuted their high antiquity. [C. Kunhan Raja, Annals of Or. Res., Madras, V, Part 2, pp. 17-40 attempts to question the anthenticity of the entire second-half of the Raghuvamśa, starting with the story of Daśaratha: but the argument advanced by him is not convincing.]