Burnouf, Introd., p. 312), came in for their share, for ten days. Now this narrative seems to reveal a state of things which would completely account for these two plays. Hiouen Thsang expressly says of the kingdom of Kanouj, that half the inhabitants held "the true doctrine," and half were attached to "error;" and no doubt a similar division existed to a greater or less extent in each of the subject kingdoms. We have only to suppose some such convocation at Kanouj as these which he has described; and what more natural than that the tributary princes, whom the manager mentions in the prologue, should, on the day of the Buddhist ceremonies, witness the Nágánanda, with its invocatory stanzas to Jina, and, on the day of installing the image of Maheśwara, should witness the Ratnávalí, with its opening Nándís to Śiva? The Málátí-mádhava of Bhavabhúti (who flourished at Kanouj about A.D. 720) presents the same toleration of the two rival religions; the play is Hindu, and the Nándí is addressed to Śiva, but a female Buddhist ascetic, with one of her disciples, is a leading character; she is the nurse of the heroine, and the confidante of her father the minister, in his desire to marry his daughter to the son of an old friend, and Mádhava, the young hero, studies logic in Buddhist schools.[1]
- ↑ We know that the Buddhists paid great attention to the study of logic, from the frequent references in Hiouen Thsang to hetu-vidyá, "the science of reasons." In a passage which I have quoted from the Nyáya-várttika-tátparya-tíká, in the preface to my translation of the Kusumánjali, Váchaspati-miśra states that the Nyáya-śástra was originally delivered by Akshapáda, or Gotama, and completed by Pakshila-swámin, and that Uddyotakara compiled his Várttika, or "Annotations," in order to clear away the
