उत्तररामचरितम् (महाकवि भवभूति - संस्कृत मूल एवं हिन्दी व्याख्या)

IV INTRODUCTION. told by the Bhojaprabandha that when Bhavabhūti and Kālidāsa composed a verse each on a topic prescribed by Bhoja, all went to the temple of Bhuvanes'varī and weighed in a balance the parchments on which the verses composed by the poets were written As the pan of Bhavabhūti's verse went up, the goddess intervened in favour of Bhavabhūti by dashing a little honey on to that pan from the lotus on her head We shall see in the sequel that Kālidāsa is separated from Bhavabhūti by several centuries All such stories which partake of the marvellous were invented by the Pandits to justify their own views about the merits of our author and the other poets There is another interesting story about Kālidāsa and Bhavabhūti Bhavabhūti composed his Uttararāmacharita and took it to Kālidāsa who was playing at chess Kālidāsa asked him to read the drama, while he himself seemed to be engrossed in the play Kālidāsa remarked, when the whole drama was read by Bhavabhūti, that it was a creditable per- formance but that there was an anusvāra too much in one verse.⁹ It is interesting to note that in a MS of the Mālatī- mādhava, the colophon at the end of two Acts makes the author of the drama a pupil of Kumārilabhaṭṭa, the great writer on the Pūrvamīmāmsā.10 There is nothing in the chronological position of the two writers as established from independent evidence to make this relationship impossible II The date of Bhavabhūti Although our knowledge of the personal history of Bhavabhūti is very meagre, it is fortunate that there are suffi- cient materials for fixing the exact period when he flourished 9 viz. in verse 27 of Act I The fourth pāda as written by भवभूति ran रात्रिरेव व्यरंसीत् Kālidāsa suggested रात्रिरेव व्यरसीत् It must be said that the latter yields a much happier meaning than the former 10 Vide Pandit's Introduction to Gauḍavaho 206 ff, 'इति श्रीमत्कुमारिलशिष्यकृते मालतीमाधवे तृतीयोंक ', 'इति श्रीकुमारिलस्वामिप्रसादप्राप्त- वाग्वैभवश्रीमदुवेकाचार्यविरचिते मालतीमाधवे षष्ठोंक' Kumārila flourished (Prof Pathak) in the first half of the 8th century Vide J B B R A S vol 18 p 217