female ascetics are represented as taking an active part in even'
more indefensible proceedings.
And now let us turn to the materials we have for forming an opinion on the age of our drama. First, then, under this head, we have to deal with the quotations from it which, as already pointed out, are to be found in the Daśarûpa and the Sarasvatîîkánthâbha- raņa. The former work alludes to the Mudrarakshasa by name in' three different places,* in one of them setting out in full an extract from it for purposes of illustration, in another giving a general reference to certain of the characters in the play, and in the third -though the genuineness of this passage is not, apparently, above suspicion +|-pointing to the Bŗuhatkathâ as the source from which the main plot of the play is derived. The Sarasvatîkaņțhâbharaņa does not mention the Mudrarakshasa by name at all; but one of the passages which it has in common with that work must be taken to be a quotation from it, though the other need not be so regarded necessarily, as the quotation in the Sarasvatîkaņțhâbharaņa is a Sanskrit stanza, while the original in the Mudrarakshasa is a Prâkriti stanza, which, in its last line, differs from the other.# Still laying aside the passages upon which doubts may thus be raised, we have a clear residue of one passage in the Sarasvatîkaņțhâbharaņa, and two in the Daśarûpa, which must be taken to be derived from the Mudrarakshasa. The dates of these two works, therefore, afford us a fairly satisfactory terminus ad quem for the date of our play. Now those dates have been generally accepted, since the publication of Dr. Fitzedward Hall's Daśarûpa and Vâsavadattâ, to fall in about the 10th or 11th century of the Christian era, the . : Sarasvatîkaņțhâbharaņa being attributed to king Bhoja himself, and the Daśarûpa being thought to be probably the work of an author who flourished in the time of Munja, the uncle of Bhoja $. We have not succeeded, since Dr. Hall's suggestions were made in gathering much further or other material for a decision of the point, and
- See pp. 59. 105, 120. |+See Dr. Hall's Preface, p. 36; Cf. Vâsavadattiâ, p. 55.
- See the references given at p.4 Supra.
$See the Dasśarûpa Preface, pp 2,3,43; and vâsavadattâ Preface, pp.8,9,11,21,50; and Cf, Prof. Bhandârkar's Preface to the Malatîmâdhava, P.X; Indian Antiquary, Vol. XL,. p. 236; Vol. VI.,p.51: Vol. I..p.251; Weber's Indian Literature, p. 201 notes Buhler's Vikramânkacharita Introd. p. 23 Eggeling's Gaņaratnamahodadhi, pp. VI., 1, 2.
