वासवदत्ता (महाकवि सुबन्धु - श्लेष-प्रधान शास्त्रीय गद्यकाव्य सान्वय सटीक)

INTRODUCTION 5 ' in Subandhu is our delight; who rejoiceth not in the author of the _Raghu(vaṃśa)_¹? satisfaction delighteth in the son of Dākṣī²; even Haricandra joyeth the heart; of faultless diction is Śūra³; the words of Bhāravi are delightsome in theme; Bhavabhūti doth infuse an inward pleasure.' Krishnamachariar also cites an allusion to the author of the Vāsavadattā in Abhi- navabhaṭṭabāṇa's Vīranārāyaṇacarita (l.c.) : pratikavibhēdanabāṇaḥ kavitātarugahanaviharaṇamayūraḥ sahṛdayalōkasubandhur jayati śrībhaṭṭabāṇakavirājaḥ, ' victorious is the noble Bhaṭṭabāṇa, king of poets, an arrow [or, “ a Bāṇa ”] for piercing hostile poets; a peacock [or, “ a Mayūra ”] for wandering through the forest of the trees of poetry; a goodly kinsman [or, “ a Subandhu ”] for all connoisseurs.' An anony- mous citation in the modern anthology Subhāṣitaratnabhāṇḍāgāra (ed. Parab, 3 ed., p. 56, Bombay, 1891) runs: māghaś cōrō mayūrō muraripur aparō bhāraviḥ sāravidyaḥ śrīharṣaḥ kālidāsaḥ kavir atha bhavabhūtyāhvayō bhōjarājaḥ śrīdaṇḍī ḍiṇḍimākhyaḥ śrutimukuṭagurur bhallaṭō bhaṭṭabāṇaḥ khyātāś cā 'nyē subandhvādaya iha kṛtibhir viśvam āhlādayanti, ' Māgha, Cōra, Mayūra, Mura's second foe (Murāri), Bhāravi in climax learned, Harṣa, Kālidāsa, and also the poet named Bhavabhūti, Bhōjarāja, Daṇḍin (hight “ the Drum ”), Bhallaṭa weighty with the diadem of fame, Bhaṭṭabāṇa, and other renowned ones, such as Subandhu, here on earth rejoice the universe with their compositions.' In the latter part of the sixteenth century, Ballāla, in his Bhōjaprabandha, which he set forth as a history of Bhōja, who ruled at Dhārā (the modern Dhār) in the eleventh century, mentioned Subandhu, according to some manuscripts, as one of the thirteen principal members of the host of five hundred literati who graced the royal court (cf. Wilson, Works, 5. 174, London, 1865; Hall, Introd., p. 7, note 1); but the list varies so extremely in the different manuscripts of the Bhōjaprabandha ¹ Kālidāsa. ² Pāṇini. ³ See Aufrecht, Catalogus Catalogorum, 1. 660, Leipzig, 1891.