74 THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY. [March, 1873. the age of Rama’s incarnation lasted. And secondly—and this is of greater importance— I hare not been able to discover the stanza after looking through the whole of the drama for it, and after having once before read it. At present, therefore, we cannot in this investiga¬ tion press to our aid the mention of Harsha by Jayadeva. The date of Sri Harsha is casually alluded to in Professor Cowell’s Preface to Mr. Palmer Boyd’s Translation of the Nagananda Nataka.* * * § But the Professor, after first remarking that his age is uncertain, simply refers to the conjecture of Babu Rajendralala Mitra upon it, and then adds—“ But I find, from a notice in the first number of the Indian Antiquary, that Dr. Biihler of Bombay has recently fixed his date in the twelfth century.” Having regard to what has been said above on this point, this remark of Professor Cowell’s cannot, of course, be considered satisfactory. Babu Rajendralala identifies this Sri Harsha with the Sri Harsha who went over to the court of Adistira, in com¬ pany with others, one of whom was Bhatta Narayana, the author of the Venisafihara Nataka.| But the Babu adds that “ this assump¬ tion, probable as it may appear, is, it must be admitted, founded entirely upon presumptive evidence, and must await future more satisfactory research for confirmation.”^ The period of this migration of Harsha and Narayana is fixed by Babu Rajendralala in the middle of the tenth century—by a calculation, however, which ad¬ mittedly can give a result but roughly correct. But it seems clear that, if the Bhatta Narayana, who was received at his palace by king Adisura,- was the author of the Venisanhara, the date fixed by Babu Rajendralala for his migration must undergo some modification. For about the middle of the tenth century, if not earlier, lived Dhanika, the author of the commentary on the
- See page 12.
f Journal of the A. S. of Bengal, No. III., 1864, p. 326,— alluded to by Prof. Cowell. | Ibid., p 327. § See Hall's Das'anlpa, Pref. pp. 2, 3,—with which should Dai ar&paka ;§ and this commentary in its earlier pages abounds with quotations from the Venisafihara,|| which must, therefore, at that time have been old enough to be regarded as fit for quotation. Hence it would seem to result that the date of the migration of Bhatta Narayana must be put back a century or so ; but this still, only on the hypothesis that this Bhatta Na¬ rayana is identical with the author of the Yenisanhara.i’ If so, and again taking Babu Rajendralala’s identification of the poet Sri Harsha to be correct, it will follow that the Babu’s conclusion as thus adjusted will be supported by the two different lines of argu¬ ment suggested in my letter. The net result of this investigation may be thus stated:—The Jaina biographer’s account, albeit it has some points in its favour, cannot be much trusted. On the other hand, the fact of the Naishadhiya being quoted in a work which, at the latest, dates from the beginning of the* eleventh century ; the fact of the work of a poet, probably contemporaneous with Sri Harsha, being quoted in a work dating from a still earlier period ; the fact of an exceedingly well-known and well-informed writer of the fourteenth century making Sri Harsha the con¬ temporary of a philosopher who flourished some six centuries or more before his time:— these facts indicate a period which is about two centuries earlier than the period to which the Harsha Prabandha assigns the subject of its narrative. And although the considerations here adduced against Rajasekhara’s statement do not fix with ahy precision the date towards which they seem to point, still they are of value, at least to this extent—that they show pretty clearly that the question of the date at which Sri Harsha flourished is not one which can be regarded as finally settled even by the circum¬ stantial narrative of the Harsha Prabandha. be coupled Hall’s VdsavadattA, Pref. p. 60 addendum to p. 9, uotes 1. 12. || See pp. 16, 18, 19, Ac., and see Wilson’s remarks in his Hindu Theatre.
See Babu R&jendraUla’s paper above referred to, p. 326.
