XII INTRODUCTION 645 A. D. He has left extensive memoirs of his travels, in which he speaks in detail about a king Harsha who was the emperor of northern India. Although there are slight discrepancies in the accounts of Harsha furnished by Bana and the Chinese pilgrim, the points of agreement are so many and so striking that there is not the least doubt that the Emperor Harsha, the patron of Bana, is the same as the great monarch of whom the Chinese pilgrim has left extensive notices. Harsha is said to have reigned from 606 A. D. to 648 A.D. It is beyond the scope of this intro- duction to give an account of Harsha. The curious reader should refer to Dr Peterson's Introduction, to the 13th chapter of Mr. V. A. Smith's monumental work the early History of India ' and to the late Parakhi-s'astri's works on Bana and Harsha in Marathi. Therefore Bana must have fourished towards the end of the 6th and in the first half of the 7th century of the Christian era.
We shall set forth below a good deal of evidence which strongly corroborates the above conclusion. We believe that a part of this evidence is for the first time brought to the notice of Sanskrit scholars by us. ( 1 ) The Harshacharita of Bana is mentioned by Ruyyaka in his Alamkarasarvasva a number of times*. We are told by him that he wrote a work called Harsha- charitavartika t. Ruyyaka wrote his Alamkarasarvasva about 1150 A.D. (2) Kshemendra, in his voluminous writings, men- tions Bana by name a number of times. Kshemendra
- "‘यस्तपोवनमिति मुनिभिः....'इत्यादि हर्षचरिते श्रीकण्ठाख्यजनपदवर्णने"
p. 47 of अलंकारसर्वस्व; "यथा हर्पचरिते राज्यवर्धनं प्रति श्रीहर्षोंक्तिपु ‘यदि बाल इति सुतरामपरित्याज्योऽस्मि...’” p. 139; “यथा वा हर्पचरितप्ररम्भे ब्रह्मसदसि वेदस्वरूपवर्णने ।...एवं तत्रैव मुनिक्रोधवर्णने, पुलिन्दवर्णनादौ शेयम्” p. 182. | ‘एषा (उत्प्रेक्षा ) च समस्तोपमाप्रतिपादकविपयेऽपि हर्पचरितवार्तिके साहित्यमीमांसायां च तेपु तेपु प्रदेशेपुदाहृता’ p. 61 of अलंकारसर्वस्व. + In his औचित्यविचारचर्चा he quotes the verse ‘स्तनयुगमञ्चस्नातं' &c, and says in the same work “न तु यथा भट्टबाणस्य ‘जयत्युपेन्द्रः स चकार & ".
