of modern composition.” Who will not be struck by the simplicity and elegance of the style of the Malavikagnimitra, the total absence in it of those monstrous long compounds, which are so wearisome already in Bhavabhûti, who may belong somewhat to the begining of the eighth century ? If we had nothing else to guide us in fixing with tolerable exactness at least the century which produced the present play, the style and diction of it would alone be sufficient for assuming that it could not have been the production of any time that was not several centuries prior to the age of Bhavabhûti. In what author, again, of those ages of elaborateness and pedantry, of which the beginning is marked by the great Bhavabhûti, shall we find such a sound piece of criticism as that put into the mouth of the stage-manager (page 2, stanza 2) by the author of the Mâlavikâgnimitra ? As Professor Wilson truly remarks , "it is the sentiment of a day long gone by."
There is yet another point, which, though failing against our expectations to determine the age of the drama at present, may yet possibly reward future research. I allude to the mention in the prologue of the poets Bhâsa and Saumilla, as predecessors of Kâlidâsa. Unfortunately, Sanskrit chronology is as yet, and perhaps will be, it is difficult to say for how many ages to come a labyrinth of uncertainties. If nothing positively is known about the time when Kâlidâsa fourished, it is equally uncertain when Bhâsa and Saumilla, his predecessors, lived! To add to the uncertainty of the ages of these latter, it does not as yet appear to be decided
