THE KAMASUTRA AND THE POET'S MILIEU 53
of India 1 we unquestionably owe most of the poets of repute; patronage by the king was at once the reward of skill in panegyric and the means of obtaining the leisure for serious composition and a measure of publicity for the works produced. It was the duty of the king to bridge the gulf between wealth and poetic talent, of the poet to save his patron from the night of oblivion which else must assuredly settle on him when his mortal life closed. At the royal courts poets vied in eager rivalry with one another ; probably in quite early times there were practised such arts as the composition of verses to complete a stanza when one verse was given, and the production of extempore poems on a given topic. The festival of SarasvatI each month afforded opportunities for displays in honour of the patroness of poetry and the arts. Fortunately, too, for the poets, kings were willing to claim renown for skill in poetry; we have seen that his panegyrist thought well to ascribe fame in this sphere to Rudradaman and we shall see that the great Gupta Emperor Samudragupta strove for renown as a man of letters. 2 Harsa not only patronized Bana, but claimed the authorship of dramas and poems, though unkind hints were prevalent that others were the true begetters of his literary offspring. 3 Four hundred years later Bhoja of Dhara was more fortunate, for we have no real knowledge to disprove his claim to polymathy exhibited in a large variety of works. In the twelfth century * the court of Laksmanasena revived the glory of Harsa's patronage, for besides the famous Jayadeva, other poets such as Umapatidhara, Dhoi, and Govardhana wrote with acceptance. The kings of Kashmir often distinguished themselves by generosity to their laureates, {kaviraja) and to such enlightened activity we owe Somadeva's
1 Rajacekhara {Kavyanumansa, p. 55) gives Vasudeva (' the Kanva or the Kusana), Satavahana, Cudraka, and Sahasfinka (?Candragupta II J Pischel, GN. 1901, pp. 485- 7) as famous patrons.
- Minor royal authors include the dramatists Mahendravikramavarman (c. 675) ;
Ya90varman, patron of Bhavabhuti (c. 735), the Kalacuri Mayuraja (c. 8oo), and Vigraharajadeva (1153). We have stanzas of a Nepalese king (8th cent.), of Amogha- varsa (815-77), of MuBja (975-95), and Arjunavannan's comm. on Amaru (13th cent.). Cf. Jackson, Priyadarhka, pp. xxxvii ff,
- Cf. Keith, Sanskrit Drama, pp. i7off.
4 Smith, Kill. pp. 419ft., 432 wishes to place this king about fifty years before the usual date, but ignores important evidence; see K. C. Majumdar, JPASB. 1931, pp. 7 ff. ; C. V. Vaidya, IHQ. i. 126 ff.; C. Chakravarti, iii. 186 ff.
