पृष्ठम्:मालविकाग्निमित्रम्.djvu/३९

विकिस्रोतः तः
पुटमेतत् सुपुष्टितम्
xxxii
MALAVIKAGNIMITRA.

play, except that he succeeded his father, Pushpamitra. To suppose then that the Mâlavikâgnimitra is the production of so late a date as the tenth or eleventh century would necessitate another supposition that the history of Pushpamitra and his son, Agnimitra, which is so familiarly alluded to in the drama, existed during these ages in a far more copious form than the bare mention of the princes in the Purânas. Nothing, however, favours such a supposition. The only inference, therefore, that is possible is, that the play was written while the story of Pushpamitra and Agnimitra was yet fresh in the memory of men, though not quite so fresh as to make it too recent to be made the subject of a drama. This would certainly require that we should assign the piece to a time several centuries earlier than the tenth or eleventh century,since Pushpamithra founded the dynasty that immediately followed the Mauryas, and must have accordingly done so about 160 years before Christ. To suppose that the deeds of Agnimitra, were chosen to be the subject of a drama at a time when nothing more was known of him than We know through the Purânas, would be to suppose what is not at all probable.

 But, in addition to this consideration, ‘‘ the style of the play,” says Professor Wilson, is very unlike that most common amongst modern writers, and most highly esteemed, being free from all jingle of sounds and from metaphorical common-place; it does not even affect anything like the uniform smoothness which seems to have preceded and ushered in the extravagancies