PREFACE xv
dattd ; the Bhdvaprakdf. a of Caradatanaya (13th century), knew a work not merely very similar in structure, but actually con- taining a verse found in the Trivandrum text. Sagaranandin in the Natakalaksanaratnakofa ascribes to the Svapnavasavadattd a passage which undoubtedly, as T. Ganapati Castri shows, is a paraphrase of a passage at the beginning of our text, not a citation from a variant text as Professor Levi suggested. 1 I agree also with T. Ganapati Castri that the passage cited by Ramacandra and Gunacandra in the Ndtyadarpana from Bhasa's Svapnavasavadattd could easily have found a place in our text, while in any event it is clear that that play contained a scene paiallel with one in our play. The most that can be made out from these facts against the ascription to Bhasa is simply that there were probably varying recensions of the piays. That, of course, may be taken for granted ; it was the fate of every much- studied and used play, and we have it exemplified to perfection in the case of Kalidasa, 2 the variations regarding whose works seem to have been unknown to or forgotten by those who refuse to recognize .Bhasa 's authorship of these dramas. There is no evidence at all to show that any of the veisions of the Qakuntala can be credited with any greater fidelity to the original of Kali- dasa than is possessed by the Trivandrum Svapnavasavadattd in relation to Bhasa's original. Moreover, it seems too often to be forgotten that variants may be due to the dramatist himself, who can hardly be supposed to have given his dramas a single peifectly definite text. It is, of course, tempting to adopt with Hermann Weller 3 the belief that the actors of Kerala have the responsi- bility for mangling our texts, and to accept the view that Bhasa is preserved to us in a deteriorated form, and that, for example, the Pratijiiayaugandhardyana and the Svapnavasavadattd made up a single piece. But I am satisfied that to accept this view is uncritical and is to substitute our pieferences for reality; the pedestrian character of some of Bhasa's stanzas can far better be explained by the simple fact of his early date; Kalidasa exhibits the influence of increased refinement of style in his dramas, just
1 JA cciii. 193 ff., followed in the very uncritical MASI. xxvui. 11.
2 Cf. also the recensions of the Uttararamacanta, Helvnlkar, JAOS. xxxiv. 428 ff.
3 Trans, of Svapnavasavadattd, p 8. Tne same theory applies, of course, to the Qakuntala.
