पृष्ठम्:Sanskrit Literature.djvu/१०८

76 KĀLIDĀSA AND THE GUPTAS gupta, however, was careful to assert his devotion to Brahmanical ideals; thus he renewed the ancient horse sacrifice as a sign of his paramount sway, and Kumāragupta appears to have followed his example. The centre of Gupta power, originally fixed at Pāṭaliputra, seems clearly to have shifted during the reign of Candragupta II to Ujjayini, doubtless in order to secure the stead- fast adherence to the empire of the newly acquired lands. That such princes should favour poetry and fine arts was inevitable. Samudragupta was proud of his skill with the lute, and a coin depicts him playing that instrument. But a more secure support for his claims is afforded by the assertions of the panegyrist Harişeṇa (c. 350), who assures us that his patron had a poetic style which was worth study and wrote poems which in- creased the poet's spiritual treasure, and again that his title of king of poets, Kavirāja, was well grounded through his composi- tion of many poems deserving imitation by others. He delighted also in the society of the earnest students of literature, was inter- ested in the explanation and defence of holy scripture, and de- voted to music. Moreover, he won fame by removing the dis- crepancy between the poet's art and riches, doubtless his chief merit in the eyes of many of his flatterers. Of his great son Candragupta we know that he adopted the title Vikramaditya, reminiscent of the legendary Vikramāditya of Ujjayini, and it is certainly plausible to suggest that the fame of Vikramāditya as the patron of poets, attested in the late and in itself worthless legend of the Nine Jewels,¹ was due to the literary distinction of Candragupta's court. The list of Jewels runs Dhanvantari, Kṣapaṇaka, Amarasinha, Çañku, Vetāla Bhaṭṭa, Ghaṭakarpara, Kālidāsa, Varahamihira, and Vararuci. Of these Dhanvantari, as the author of a medical glossary, is older than Amarasinha, who also used Kalidasa; the fourth and fifth are mere names; Varā- hamihira definitely lived in the sixth century, and the dates of Kṣapaṇaka as a lexicographer and of Vararuci are unknown. But we have a distinct corroboration of the idea of Candragupta as a patron of poets in the fact that his minister of external affairs, Virasena Kautsa Çaba, was interested in poetry. Probably the succeeding emperors manifested equal' concern in poetry. ¹ Weber, ZDMG. xxii. 708 ff.; Zachariae, Die indischen Worterbucher, pp. 18 ff.; Fleet, IA. xxx. 3 1.