KAVYA IN INSCRIPTIONS 51
victory in a battle in which in wondrous wise the Wind, Garuda, Siddhas, Yaksas, .J&aksasas, Vidyadharas, Bhutas, Gandharvas, Caranas, the sun, the moon, the Naksatras, and the planets take part. Thus early we find that confusion of the mortal and the supernatural which induces an alleged historian like Bilhana to allow Civa to intervene when needed in the fate of his patron. There can be no doubt from these inscriptions of the existence of Sanskrit Kavya, and doubtless also of a science of poetics among the Brahmins. 1 It is, therefore, accident only which has preserved Buddhist works like those of Acvaghosa as the earliest specimens of the Kavya. Moreover there is a simple explanation of the accident ; Acvaghosa was one of the great names of Buddhism ; no one arose to surpass his achievement in depicting the life of the Buddha, whereas the glory of earlier poets was eclipsed by that of Kalidasa. Nor is this mere theory ; we know in fact that of the predecessors in drama enumerated by Kalidasa himself the works of all save one are lost, apparently irretrievably.
5. The Kamasutra and the Poet's Milieu.
Vatsyayana's Kamasutra 2 is of uncertain date, but it is not improbably older than Kalidasa, and in any case it represents the concentrated essence of earlier treatises on the Ars Amoris. There is no question of the importance of knowledge of this topic for the writers of erotic poetry, and there is abundant proof that the Kamasutra was studied as eagerly by would-be poets as were grammar, poetics, and lexicography. To Vatsyayana we owe a vivid conception of the Indian parallel to the man about town (nagaraka) whose existence was due to the growing elaboration of Indian life, and whose interest the poet was anxious to pro- pitiate. We see him, 3 opulent, a denizen of the town which lends him his name, or, if compelled by adverse fortune to vegetate in
1 The use of compounds in ornamental epithets appears to have been much pro- moted by their convenience in eulogies of kings, places, &c, in inscriptions, just as in
Jain texts they are heaped up in stock descriptions.
2 See below, chap, xxiv ; cf. Haraprasad, Magadkan Literatttrc, chap. iv. On the arts, Kalas, sixty-four in number at least, of early India, see A. Venkatasubbiah and E Midler, JRAS. 1914, pp. 355-67.
- The comm. allows him to be of any caste.
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