320 REVIEW OF THE NAISHADHA CHARITA, 



At this point Shri Harsha, the writer of the Naisliadha, stops ; 

 while Vyasa Deva and KXlidasa, though they have written much less, 

 have carried the story to a greater length, and have supplied a greater 

 variety of incidents. They have stated that after reigning for some years 

 in the greatest happiness, king Nala became devoted to gaming. The 

 origin of this passion is ascribed to demoniacal influence. Kali, the per- 

 sonification of the iron age or of vice, is described as infatuating the mind 

 of the monarch to such a degree that nothing could divert him from his 

 destructive course. In him are exhibited the reckless effects of gaming. 

 His kingdom was lost, his wife and children abandoned, and himself an 

 exile subjected to incredible privations and sufferings . After he had been 

 taught by the most painful experience the folly of his conduct, he is repre- 

 sented as being restored to his kingdom ; like Nebuchadnezzar, after he 

 had been driven from men to reside with the beasts of the field, till he had 

 learned that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to 

 whomsoever he will. On his restoration to his empire, he is described as 

 being happy and as reigning prosperously to a good old age. 



The Naishadha is divided into two parts called the tr^^^ and the 

 ^tTT^^. This division is, however, entirely artificial ; there being 

 nothing in the nature of the topics discussed that requires such a distinc- 

 tion. The whole work consists of twenty-two books, and the whole 

 subject is the marriage of Nala. Great credit must be given to SnRf 

 Harsha for the ingenuity displayed in lengthening out his story by 

 minute delineations. We should have concluded it impossible for the 

 poet to write nearly three thousand lengthy stanzas that would be generally 

 interesting to the reader, on the courtship and marriage of a King, unless 

 he had furnished us with ocular demonstration. The word Adventures in 

 the English title of this work, would lead the reader to anticipate other 

 events than those of a happy courtship and marriage ; and on this account, 

 it is not fitly applied in the present instance. In the seventeenth book 

 we have an account of the gods returning and Kali coming to try Nala, 

 In the twenty- first book we have an account of the king's procession to 



