Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c32.s2.3

c32.s2.3

Kāmandaka cannot be put in the 8th cen. as done by Jolly and Winternitz (Jolly's A Ś., 46). It is earlier than the Maha-Bharata for the reasons (1) that the latter knows it, (2) that the Artha-Sāstra book of the Great Rishis which was lost when the M. Bh. (ŚP.) was written, had been used by Kam. (as pointed out above, p. 6, *), and (3) the general style (cf. the Narada Smriti)¹ indicating Gupta times. (4) The known date of Bhavabhūti helps us further. Bhavabhūti as ably shown by MM. Gaṇapati Sastrī (AŚ., II, Intro., p. 7) knew his work; not only he knew Kamandaka but his audience also must have known his work as a well-established authority to be able to follow and enjoy the character "Kāmandakī" like the "Buddharakshitā" and "Avalokitā." Kamandaka must have published his work a few centuries before Bhavabhūti (first half of the 8th cen.). The datum of the M Bh. would place his lower limit in the fifth century A.C. Its earlier limit probably is the Tantrākhyāyika which does not know it. The interval between the AŚ. and Kāmandaka is large, for not only several subjects and topics in the AŚ. have become in Kam.'s time antiquated enough to be left out, a new group of authorities, unknown to the AŚ., had intervened.