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The Mauryan Polity c5.s2.t6: Priority of Bhāsa

The Mauryan Polity c5.s2.t6

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Priority of Bhāsa

c5.s2.t6.1

Again the contention that Kauṭalya was indebted to the dramatist Bhāsa from whose *Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa* he has quoted a verse is true. Kauṭalya makes no pretension that the verse in question is his own. He clearly makes us understand that it is a quotation from his statement *apiha ślokau bhavataḥ*. It is difficult to accept the theory that Bhāsa was a later writer and Kauṭalya must have therefore lived after him. The date of Bhāsa has been as much a vexed question as that of Pāṇini or even Kauṭalya. A number of dates ranging from the 6th century B.C. to the 7th century A.D. has been assigned by scholars mostly from imaginative reasoning. The discoverer and the learned editor of Bhāsa’s plays M. M. Gaṇapati Śāstri has, thoroughly and in detail, examined the views of all critics and has come to the conclusion that Bhāsa is pre-Kauṭaliyan. He assigns 5th or 6th century B.C. to Bhāsa basing his arguments on indisputable evidence.¹ This learned view of one Mahāmahopādhyāya is confirmed by the equally learned view of another Mahāmahopādhyāya Haraprasāda Śāstri who accepts without any reserve the priority of Bhāsa to Kauṭalya on different grounds of which two may be cited here. (1) The king of the country mentioned in the *bharatavākya* of every one of Bhāsa’s plays is one of the Nanda dynasty which preceded the Mauryas. (2) Bhāsa belongs to one of the older schools of Dramaturgy, and is unacquainted with the rules laid down in the *Bharata Nāṭya Śāstra* (now published in the Kāvyamālā series. H. P. Śāstri continues: "I have got a curious confirmation of the existence of the dramaturgy in Ancient India in the fact that Kauṭalya has classed Kuśilavas or actors with the Śūdras. Nāṭyaśāstra says that the original Kuśilavas were all Brahmans or better still of divine origin but they ridiculed the Ṛṣis and therefore they were cursed to become Śūdras. So their Śūdra-hood is later than the origin of the drama. As in Cāṇakya’s time they were classed to be Śūdras, we are to infer that at that time drama was an old institution."¹

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¹ *Bhāsa’s Plays—A Criticism*, pp. 74-75.

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¹ See *Bhāsa's Plays*, p. 54, footnote.

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Fortified then by the consolidated opinions of two Mahāmahōpādhyāyas of no mean repute we are inclined to assign Bhāsa to a period of antiquity not earlier than the 6th century B.C. It would not be therefore unreasonable to assign to the Kauṭalīya 4th century B.C.

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*Yājñavalkyasmṛti* and *Arthaśāstra*.

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Equally inconclusive is the effort of some scholars to fix the date of *Yājñavalkyasmṛti* in the 3rd century A.D.² and to bring down the *Arthaśāstra* to a later date on the evidence of several parallel passages. The close affinity of both the *Arthaśāstra* and the *Dharmaśāstra* of Yājñavalkya lands us in the difficulty to determine which was the earlier. There are three schools of thought. One holds the view that Yājñavalkya was a pre-Kauṭalīyan writer. The second view is that whatever be the date of Yājñavalkya he drew his materials from Kauṭalya. The third school maintains that Kauṭalya lived in or about the third century A.D. (one date for the Yājñavalkyasmṛti), and the composition of the *Arthaśāstra* must have been about that date. Though arguments advanced by each school of thought are supported by evidence of some kind or other, the substantive weight of the argument is cast on the side of the first school of thought whose staunch supporter is the late Gaṇapati Śāstri. In the introduction to his edition of the *Arthaśāstra* the learned Indologist has examined this question in a scholarly spirit and his conclusion must appeal to every impartial student of Sanskrit literature. It would not be out of place to refer to some of his arguments as they are of much consequence.

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² The law-book of Yājñavalkya has been recently the subject of critical study by two German scholars. J. J. Meyer argues that individual authors were at the bottom of the law-books of ancient India in his learned work *Uber das Wesen der altindischen Rechtsschriften* (Leipzig, 1927). This assumption is questioned by Hans Losch in his new book *Die Yājñavalkya Smṛti* (Otto Harrassowitz, Leipzig, 1927). This provoked a reply from Meyer, in his *Gesetzbuch und Purāṇa* (Breslau, 1929). Here Meyer reaffirms the position which he has originally taken, in regard to the authorship of Yājñavalkyasmṛti.

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(a) Viśvarūpācārya alias Sureśvarācārya in his commentary *Bālakrīḍā* on the Yājñavalkya Smṛti¹ gives quotations from the *Arthaśāstra* of Bṛhaspati and Viśālākṣa, the predecessors of Kauṭalya Gaṇapati Śāstri says: “It is the proper practice of a commentator that he should supply deficiencies in the statements of an author advisedly left out to be learnt from other sources by having recourse to those writers who are known either as ancient or contemporary authority to the author himself, but not to those that are posterior to the author.” He did not quote Kauṭalya because the latter was posterior to Yājñavalkya.²

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¹ T. S. S., No. 74.

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² P. 6, Intro., Vol. I.

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(b) Yājñavalkya, the author of the Smṛti, who studied his Yajurveda under Vaiśampāyana, was a contemporary of Sūta of Purāṇic celebrity referred to in the *Arthaśāstra*.¹ In dealing with Pratiloma marriages Kauṭalya defines Sūta as a son begotten of a Brahman woman by a Kṣatriya and Māgadha as a son begotten of a Kṣatriya woman by a Vaiśya. At the same time he takes care to restrict the application of his definition in the case of Sūta-Paurāṇika and Māgadha, the panegyrist, both sprung up from the holy sacrificial ground of king Pṛthu.² "It is certain that centuries must have intervened between Sūta and Kauṭalya before the latter could have believed in the works of Sūta as Purāṇas of archaic celebrity."³

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¹ Bk. III, ch. 7.

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² Bk. III, ch. 12.

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³ Vol. I, Intro., pp. 6-7.

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(c) Shāma Śāstri's contention is that Yājñavalkya and not Kauṭalya would have to be regarded as the borrower, for there are certain technical terms which Kauṭalya appears to have used in a more original and appropriate sense. For example, *śapathavākyānuyoga* of the *Kauṭalīya* means 'trial of a criminal on oath' whereas Yājñavalkya's *ayuktam śapatham* means 'an improper oath'. The term *ayukta* in the *Kauṭalīya* means 'an official' while *ayogya* of Yājñavalkya means 'improper'. Gaṇapati Śāstri has pointed out against this, that *śapatha* of the *Smṛti* is in the opinion of Kauṭalya an unauthorised demand for statements on oath.⁴ Similarly *yoga* and *niyoga* mean a 'privilege'. One having *yoga* is *yukta* and one deserving of *yoga* is *yogya*. Thus the difference between *yogya* and *yukta* is but nominal, and both really mean the same thing. It is then evident, as the learned scholar concludes, that Kauṭalya was indebted to the smṛtis and his position in respect of the smṛtis was that of a commentator. It therefore follows that the contention that Yājñavalkya is posterior to Kauṭalya is untenable.¹

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⁴ Ibid., p. 9: Jolly's Intro., p. 18.

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¹ See Introduction, Trivandrum ed., Vol. I, p. 9; cp. Jolly, Intro., p. 18; Shāma Śāstri (1919) Ed. Intro., p. vii f; see also Yāj. Smṛti with Viśvarūpa Commentary T.S.S., 74, Intro., p. iv-viii.

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