A History of Indian Literature v3.c35.s8.94

v3.c35.s8.94

³ The authenticity of the Ṛtusaṃhāra is often likewise doubted as already stated. J. Nobel (ZDMG 66, 1912, 275 ff; 73, 1919, 194 ff.; JRAS 1913, 401 ff.) is the last scholar to doubt its authenticity, whilst A. B. Keith (JRAS 1912, 1066) has defended it. A. Gawroński (The digvijaya of Raghu and some connected problems, p. 29, note 3) refutes the authorship of this poem to Kālidāsa. However, it is, generally admitted that the Ṛtusaṃhāra is already imitated in the Mandasor-inscription (472 A.D.) (see Kielhorn, NGGW 1890, 251 ff.), therefore, it must have been of a time not far from the works of Kālidāsa. That Ṛtusaṃhāra, in many respects differs from the other poems of Kālidāsa can be easily explained from the fact, that it belongs to some other class. However, the circumstance that the Ṛtusaṃhāra is nowhere cited in the works of rhetorics speaks against its authenticity; see Hari Chand, Kālidāsa, p. 240 ff. In the beginning of the 18th century A.D. Viśveśvara, in his poem Ṣaḍrtuvarṇana, has already imitated it (see Krishnamacharya 128) [Hillebrandt, Kālidāsa p. 66 ff., considers the Ṛtusaṃhāra as "the earliest work of Kālidāsa written in the days of his youth. See also S. K. De, JRAS 1927, pp. 109-10].