काव्यमीमांसा (महाकवि राजशेखर - कवि-रहस्य एवं देश-विभाग सटीक)

XXVI INTRODUCTION. for the last fifty years or more, in which celebrated scholars have taken part. Kālidāsa must be a contemporary of Candragupta Vikramāditya and the Vākāṭaka Pṛthvīṣeṇa, and thus he should be assigned a period corresponding to the last quarter of the fourth century A. D.¹ While mentioning the four boundaries of the city of Kanauj, the capital of his patron kings Mahendrapāla and Mahīpāla, Rāja- śekhara clears up several topographical problems connected with the city, and helps us in identifying certain well-known names of places, identifications of which were open to doubt for a long time. On page 94 he mentions four places: Vāmanasvāmī, Gādhipura, Kālapriya and Brahmaśilā, and all of them seem to be situated in the four directions of the city of Kanauj. Thus, we can under- stand that these four well-known places in literature were the suburbs of the city of Kanauj. For further details the attention of readers is invited to the page 243, of the explanatory notes appended to this edition. III. The Geography of Bhāratavarṣa. Rājaśekhara's fondness for geography is borne out by the numerous references to geographical names mentioned in his works, and the ancient notions regarding world geography find a lucid expression in these productions. He gives geographical references in abundance, particularly in two works, namely, the Bālarāmāyaṇa and the Kāvyamīmāṁsā. In the former work, while staging the Sītāsvayaṁvara, a short drama supposed to be a composition of the sage Bharata, and while describing the aerial flight of Rāma to Ayodhyā from Laṅkā, he mentions a large number of places in succession, and these references enable us to fix their location with a fair degree of exactitude. In the 17th chapter of the Kāvyamīmāṁsā, the author gives by far the most prolific geographical information regarding the divisions of the world, and the details of the Bhāratavarṣa, and this represents the expert knowledge of geography as prevalent in his time. The earth, he says, is divided into seven great islands encircled by seven oceans. Among these the Jambūdvīpa is

1. For further information on the date of Kālidāsa and his connections with Vākāṭaka kings, see my Paper entitled “King Pravarasena and Kālidāsa” in the Proceedings of the Seventh All-India Oriental Conference, 1933.