रत्नावली नाटिका (सम्राट हर्षवर्धन - शास्त्रीय नाटिका रत्न सम्पूर्ण ४ अङ्क सान्वय सटीक)

INTRODUCTION xvii There is another contention as to the genuineness of the author- ship of these works which is challenged by a sentence from Kāvya- prakās'a of Mammaṭa—‘कालिदासादीनामिव यशः श्रीहर्षादिर्धावकादीनामिव धनम्’ (ch I) and by a line from Uddyota of Nāgeśa ,“धावकः कविः । सः हि श्रीहर्षनाम्ना रत्नावलीं कृत्वा बहुधनं लब्धवान्” । These lines show that S'rī Harsha did not write these works himself but got them written by his court-poet Dhāvaka who in exchange of a large amount of money transferred the authorship to his patron. Mr. Kale observes, “As it is, the whole of this comment turns upon the explanations of the commentators of Kāvyaprakās'a whom we need not explicitly follow ; for there is another and a more natural interpretation of the passage in question viz., that Dhāvaka and other poets got wealth from their (royal) patron as a reward and as a mark of recognition and it is necessary to suppose that authorships were transferred to the patrons in consideration of such gifts. Sensitive and honourable patrons themselves would fight shy of such wholesale transfers.”—Introduction to Ratná- vali. Some critics contend that Ratnāvalī was written originally by Bāṇabhaṭṭa, the court-poet of S'rī Harsha and the the author- ship was transferred to his patron in exchange of money. This contention is based on the slender basis of a line—‘श्रीहर्षादेर्बाणादीनामिव धनम्’—come across in a manuscript of Kāvyaprakās'a. The s'loka द्वीपादन्यस्माद् etc., of the प्रस्तावना of Ratnāvalī is referred to in the celebrated work Harshacharitam. The quotation might have been an accidental one. That cannot be the determining factor of the authorship to be attributed to Bāṇabhaṭṭa. Again if a celebrated poet like Bāṇabhaṭṭa thought it lucrative to transfer the authorship of Ratnāvalī which he himself wrote, to the name of his patron in exchange of money, then he could have earned more money by passing the authorship of his two notable works Kādambarī and Harshacharita that are outstandingly superior works to Ratnāvalī and the authorship of which is a matter of Intro.—B