महावीरचरितम् (महाकवि भवभूति - वीररस-प्रधान रामकथा नाटक सम्पूर्ण ७ अङ्क सटीक)

Introduction [xxxvi] he has mastered the sciences of grammar and rhetoric and logic,¹ and has studied the Vedas and the Upanishads, the Sāṅkhya and the Yoga. His preceptor was Jñāna-nidhi,² rightly so called, a pious ascetic, and, like Aṅgiras, pre-eminent among the sages. Bhavabhūti is a poet and, as is natural, is in friendly relations with the actors, into whose hands he gave his dramatic works. 2. His family-home, Padmapura in the Berars.—Some manuscripts of the Mālatī-Mādhava distinctly say that Padmapura was 'in the Berars', Vidarbheshu.³ In the prologue, the stage-manager speaks of the play as enacted on the occasion of the 'fair of Lord Kālapriya'. If the usual assumption is correct that Lord Kālapriya is the same as Mahākāleśvara, whose famous shrine at Ujjain in Mālva is mentioned by Kālidāsa and Bāṇa and others,⁴ and if we are justified in inferring that the Mālatī- Mādhava was therefore enacted at Ujjain,—then the stage-manager's mention of Padmapura as 'in the country to the south' or as 'in the Dekkan' (Dakshiṇāpathe) would be entirely in harmony with the datum of the manuscripts which specify Padmapura as 'in the Berars'; for Vidarbha is in fact to the south (and a little east) of Ujjain. In fairness, however, we must add that the oldest extant manuscript ⁵ of the Mālatī- Mādhava, dated Nevārī Saṁvat 276 = A.D. 1156, does not mention the province in which Padmapura was situated, nor does the prologue to the Mahāvīra-charita. 3. Identity of Padmapura with Padmāvatī of the Mālatī-Mādhava unproved.—The scene of the Mālatī-Mādhava is laid in a city named Padmāvatī. This city and its surroundings are so minutely described in that play, especially at the end of act iv and the beginning of act ix, that Mr. M. V. Lele ⁶ believes he has succeeded in identifying its exact site with that of what is now a small village called Pavāyā or Polā-Pavāyā, near which remains of a considerable city are discernible. Pavāyā is a little to the north-east of Narvār. Narvār is near the centre of Gwalior state, and is almost due south of Agra, and just 100 miles from it; and it is 220 miles from Ujjain, about north-east by north. If Bhavabhūti's ancestral home, Padmapura, is to be identified with the

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Footnotes

¹ 'Science of words and of sentences and of syllogisms.' ² 'Store of knowledge.' ³ See Dr. Bhandarkar's 2nd edition, p. 11 of the Text, end. ⁴ See Raghuvaṁśa, vi. 34; Meghadūta 37 (stanza Bhartuḥ kaṇṭha-, &c.) and 38; also Kādambarī, p. 53, ed. of the Bombay Skt. Series. ⁵ The Nepal Durbar Library MS., no. 1473 ṭ of the Catalogue (Calcutta, 1905), a palm-leaf MS. I used a rotograph copy of it made for the Harvard College Library. ⁶ See his book (in Marāṭhī) entitled Mālatī-Mādhava, Sāra va Vichāra, p. 5 a. Also Cunningham, Archaeological Report for 1862–5, vol. ii, pp. 307–8, where, however, Padmāvatī is identified with Narvār itself.