A History of Indian Literature v3.c35.s8.169

v3.c35.s8.169

To the 11th century A.D. belongs also the Āryāsaptaśatī⁴, "Seven Hundred Āryā Verses" of the poet Govardhana. The author is a contemporary of the famous Jayadeva, who says about him that nobody can surpass master Govardhana in excellent erotic descriptions. The poet boasts about himself (v. 52) that he has carried over to Sanskrit by force the type of poetry that usually found tasteful expression in Prākrit, in the same manner as Balarāma raised up into the sky the Yamunā, of which the water was suitable for a low plain. By this he means to say that upto his time the erotic poetry composed in the Āryā metre was brought to perfection and was usually cultured in Prākrit, and it was he who introduced it into Sanskrit. In fact his task was to write in Sanskrit a work that could throw into dark the fame of Hāla's Sattasaī by composing 700 stanzas in the Āryā metre with erotic themes, that are related in no way with one another and have been arranged by him in an alphabetic order (according to the initial letters). His task might have been more difficult than that of Hāla; but the Āryāsaptaśatī, lacking in popularity, cannot be compared with the Sattasaī. However, the work of Govardhana was the model on which the poet Bihārī Lāl composed in the Hindī language his Sat'saī, of which, the verses, in the opinion of Grierson¹, "show the charm and elegance of language, on account of which Kālidāsa would have envied him": and again this Hindī work has been imitated by a Sanskrit poet Paramānanda "in one Śṛṅgārasaptatikā.