xii | BHATIKA VYA being Mahesaras or Parma-mahe&varas. Bhatti too seems to have been a Saiva, as will be shown later. He does not mention Buddhism at all, while, during the regime Dharasena IV, Valabhi ranked second to Kapilavastu in patronising Buddhism ; it had a hundred monasteries harbouring six thousand Buddhist mendi cants of the Sammatiya school . Dhruvasena (A.D. 621) also made and gifts to a Buddhist monasteryHe also boasted of being a Parma-bhagavata or Paramadityabhakta, evidently not a Saiva. So, most probably, Bhatti fourished before A.D. 621 The Bombay Gazetteer maintains that Dharasena IV was Bhatti's patron. But the term Narendra' can hardly be interpreted as an emperor or a Cakravarta which was the title of Dharasena IV. DrH. R. Divekar seems to be right in conjecturing that he lived during the rule of Dharasena II (Sr in Sridharashnu is an honorific title and snt a mis-spelling for 'Sena'). १ Bhattl, Bhamaha and Dandin The chronological relationship between Bhamaha, Dandin and Bhatti, if fixed for certain , will provide further evidence regarding the date of Bhatti. But that relation is, in itself, widely debated by different scholars , The main bone of conten- tion is the last verse of the Bhattikavya : व्याख्यागम्यमिदं काव्यमुत्सवः सुधियामलम् । हता दुर्मेधसश्चास्मिन् विद्वत्प्रियतया मया ।। which closely resembles Bhamaha's censure of such com positions in काव्यान्यपि यदीमानि व्याख्यागम्यानि शास्त्र वत् । उत्सवः सुधियामेव हन्त दुर्मेधसो हता: ॥ (II. 20) 1. Vol. I, Pt. I, '1096, 90-91. Also K. P. Trivedi, C. V. Vaidya, and R. C. Parikha. 2. ४ of the Royal Asiatic Societ, (JRAS), 1929, pp. 825-41,
