पृष्ठम्:Sanskrit Literature.djvu/१४८

116 BHĀRAVI, BHAṬṬI, KUMĀRADĀSA, AND MAGHA eight, and two times; Kālidāsa, on the contrary, likes best the third Vipulă. 2. Bhatti Bhaṭṭi, the author of the Ravanavadha, more usually simply styled Bhaṭṭikavya, tells us that he wrote in Valabhi under Çrīdharasena. But four kings of this name are known, the last of whom died in A. D. 641, so that we remain with nothing more secure than that as a terminus ad quem. The suggestion ² that he is to be identified with Vatsabhaṭṭi of the Mandasor inscription lacks all plausibility, if only for the reason that Vatsabhaṭṭi commits errors in grammar. The name Bhaṭṭi is Prakritized from Bhartr, and it is not surprising that in tradition he has been either identified with Bhartṛhari or made a son or half-brother of that famed poet. There is, however, nothing but the name to support the suggestion. We know, however, that he was imitated by Māgha, and it is a perfectly legitimate suggestion that his work gave Magha the impetus to show his skill in grammar to the extent that he does. More important still is the plain fact that he was known to Bhãmaha. In ending his poem he boasts that it needs a comment: vyakhyagamyam idam kävyam utsavaḥ sudhiyam alam hata durmedhasaç casmin vidvatpriyatayā mayā. 'This poem can be understood only by a comment; it suffices that it is a feast for the clever and that the stupid come to grief in it as a result of my love of learning.' Bhamaha rather clumsily repeats in almost identical terms this verse. The list of Alam- kāras given by Bhaṭṭi is in a certain measure original, when com- pared with those of Dandin and Bhamaha; its source is still unknown. Bhaṭṭi's poem, a lamp in the hands of those whose eye is grammar, but a mirror in the hands of the blind for others, is esssentially intended to serve the double plan of describing Rāma's history and of illustrating the rules of grammar. In the latter aspect its twenty-two cantos fall into four sections; the first ¹ Ed. with Jayamañgala's comm., Bombay, 1887; with Mallinātha, BSS. 1898; i-iv ed, and trans. V. G. Pradhan, Poona, 1897. Cf. Hultzsch, EL. i. 92; Keith, JRAS. 1909, p. 435. 2 B. C. Mazumdar, JRAS. 1904, PP. 395-7; 1909, p. 759-