( iv )
denuded of facts, and the process of adding limbs and features to the stump of an older tradition naturally went on. Add to this process such floating legendary materials as the story about a gift made to one's be- loved proving her infidelity by changing hands till it reached the donor again, or the miracles with which the tben famous sect of Yogis used to be credited and so on, and you hope to get a fairly good biography of Bhartr- hari such as gradually gained currency in tradition.
The verses, composed -may be, with stray excep- tions-by Bhartrhari himseJf, cannot be made to give any clue to his individual life, for his poetry seeks to create effect through style and sentiment too conven- tional to yield themselves to such use. But still his life- long lessons from experience and observation must have been reflected in their peculiar trend and emphasis in the movements of sentiment through the verses; and it may be possible for a reader of penetrative intellect to trace out from such nice shades the bare outline of a deeper ljfe of hard-fought struggles and late-won victory. A nature, straightforward, possessed of noble faith in itself, unambitious of high distinction among men, but deeply susceptible to the beauties and charms of sentiment, seems to have been involved once in a tangle of sensual enjoyments too heavy to leave it the sustained strength for wielding lhe sceptre, till from a life of such weak- ness and consequent dependence. If gradually rose through reactions, deep and incisive, to a wonderfully enriched sense of worldly vanity and an effective strength of renunciation. The verses composed by Bhartrhari tend to present to view the background of
