author of the Daśa-rúpa, flourished at the court of King Munja; and as no other sovereign of that name occurs in any known list of kings, this is no doubt the uncle and predecessor of Bhoja of Dhárá. We know, from a date given in a Jaina poem (Colebrooke, Essays, II. 53), that Munja was reigning A.D. 993. Dhananjaya’s date is also confirmed by the fact that Hemachandra, who lived A.D. 1174, quotes the Daśa-rúpa, in his Commentary on his own Abhidhána-chintámani, which proves that the author was then of sufficient antiquity to be taken as an authority in a grammarian's work. The Ratnávalí is also quoted in the Saraswatí-kanthábharana, which is ascribed to King Bhoja, who reigned in the beginning of the eleventh century. The Ratnávalí, therefore, and the Nágánanda, and the King Śrí Harsha Deva, who is mentioned as their author, must be placed in an earlier period than that of Bhoja or his uncle Munja. This at once shows that Wilson’s conjecture is untenable, that the Śrí Harsha of the Ratnávalí could have been the Harsha Deva of Cashmir, who reigned from A.D. 1113 to 1125.
Dr Hall has given some good reasons for his adjudication of the Ratnávalí to the poet Bána. He was fortunate enough to obtain three MSS. of Bána's poem, the Harsha-charitra (alluded to in the Sáhitya-darpana, p. 210), and in it he found the well-known verse beginning dwípa'd, anyasmád api, with which the first act of the Ratnávalí opens. It is hardly likely that any one but
text and commentary of the Sáhitya-darpana. I may, however, add, that Dhanika is quoted by name in the Sáhitya-darpana, p. 118 (cf. Daśa-rúpa, p. 171).
