एतत् पृष्ठम् अपरिष्कृतम् अस्ति
54 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF KAVYA LITERATURE
Kathasaritsagara. Yet it is worth remembering that we cannot prove any royal patron for Kalidasa, greatest of Indian poets, or even for Kalhana, the one historian of teal merit in Sanskrit litera- ture. Nor, of couise, was royal generosity confined to Sanskrit poetry; to a king, Hala or Satavahana, is ascribed the anthology of Maharastri verse, and Vakpatiraja wrote his epic, Gaiidavaha, for Yacovarman of Kanauj, thus assuring him an immortality to survive his defeat at the hands of Lalitaditya of Kashmir. So, too, if we believe tradition, it was perhaps the patronage of Kaniska which produced the first great work of the court epic preserved to us, the Buddhacarita of Acvaghosa.
