and if no one has ever doubted its correctness, we
must, by all means, accept it as conclusive evidence.
Now what is the nature of external evidence as regards
the drama tending to show whether it does or does not
belong to the author of the Śâkuntala and the Vikramorvaśî? The very prologue itself unequivocally states that the drama is a production of Kâlidâsa; and
nobody has ever doubted that this Kâlidasâ is the
same individual as the author who has given us the
two other plays. The same kind of tradition, namely,
the statement of the author introducing the play to
the public, implicitly and universally believed, that
fathers the Śâkuntala and the Vikramorvaśî upon
Kâlidâsa, is the tradition that attributes the Mâlavikâgnimitra to him. In all the three plays KÂLIDÂSA is
stated to be the author who composed them. If either
of the two plays of Śâkuntala and Vikramorvaśî were
to be denied to-day to be the production of the same
Kâlidâsa who composed the other, laying aside internal evidence, what positive evidence should we have to
show that they both belonged to one and the same Kâlidâsa ? So far then as external evidence goes, there is
none to show that the Mâlavikâgnimitra belongs to a
different Kâlidâsa; but,on the contrary, the prologue
most positively declares that the play belongs to Kâlidâsa.
By external evidence, therefore, we have no grounds to
suspec| that the Mâlavikâgnimitra is the production of
another Kâlidâsa. Traditionary external evidence has
always attributed it to the same Kâlidâsa, till Professor
Wilson chose to doubt the correctness of the tradition.
पृष्ठम्:मालविकाग्निमित्रम्.djvu/२८
पुटमेतत् सुपुष्टितम्
xxi
PREFACE.
