But if we should suppose that the imitation is a production of a modern age, say the time of Bhoja, when
there was an unequalled activity in the cultivation of
Sanskrit learning, it is impossible to think that the
drama. should bear no stamp whatever of the time
when it was composed. For it is granted by Professor
Wilson himself that it is free from all the "extravagancies" of modern composition. It has none of those
faults of bad taste and unnaturalness which distinguish
modern Sanskrit poems and dramas.
Nor can we account for the wholesale similarities by supposing that the Mâlavikâgnimitra is an adaptation. We know of no original to which such an adaptation could be referred. And we have also to remember that adaptations, by their very nature, are devoid of all originality, of all invention. The Mâlavikâgnimitra, however, whatever its poetical merits, may fairly be allowed to be as much distinguished for the display of those qualities as the two other dramas of Kâlidâsa.
What is then the fact ? What is it that caused Professor Wilson, and, through him, several other European scholars, to doubt whether the play under notice really belonged to the author of the Lost Ring? The poetical worth of the Mâlavikâgnimitra, even if not so great as that of either of the two other dramas, ought not, I think, to be reckoned as sufficient ground for holding that it belongs to a different author. All the works of a poet, even those that actually come to our hands after all the care bestowed on them by their author, are far from always being equally excellent. Every literature,
