1873.] F. S. Growse— A Metrical Version of the PritJiiraj Ttasau. 335 
Be seventh in place the jocund grace of Danda-Mali’s theme, 
Sweeping along, full, deep and strong, like Ganga’s mighty stream. 
Eighth Jayadeva, bard of hards, most worthy that high name, 
20. Whose sole delight to tell aright the great god Gohind’s fame. 
Thus each great name of elder fame I the hard Chanel invoke ; 
For as the present god inspired, those loving servants spoke. 
In humble phrase I dare to praise the deeds of one and all, 
24. Who can but gather up the crumbs that from their table fall. 
If this passage is genuine, and there seems no reason to doubt the 
fact, it is of some value in the history of Sanskrit literature as tending to 
determine the date of the two poets Sri Harsha and Jayadeva. Dr. Biihler 
assigns the former to the middle of the twelfth century, relying chiefly on 
the authority of Baja Sekhara, a Jain writer of about the year 1350 A. D. 
This view, which is by no means in accordance with ordinary Hindu tradi¬ 
tion, has been ably combated in the pages of the Indian Antiquary, and 
must now he considered as finally refuted. For though Chand may not 
have been a very profound critic of Sanskrit style, and may have been as 
regardless of chronological precision as most of his countrymen, still it is 
impossible that he should have committed the blunder of referring to remote 
antiquity a writer, who—according to Dr. Biihler’s hypothesis—would 
have been all but, if not quite, his contemporary. Similarly in Jayadeva’s 
case, the desire of European scholars to prune down the exaggerated 
figures, in which Hindus are prone to indulge, has led to error in the op¬ 
posite direction. Professon Wilson concludes him to have been a disciple of 
the great religious reformer Bamanand, who flourished in the thirteenth or 
fourteenth century. This connection, so far as I can ascertain, is not war¬ 
ranted by any text in the Bhakta Mala, the recognized authority for the 
lives of the Vaishnava saints, and is totally disproved by the fact now brought 
to light that Jayadeva is mentioned by name by Chand, who wrote some 
hundred years before the time of Bamanand even. # 
The metre Bhujanga pray at is a series of rhyming couplets, each line 
comprising four of the foot called in Sanskrit prosody Ya-gan , i. e. one short 
followed by two long syllables. In the twenty-four lines, as originally 
printed, there are as many as eighteen false quantities; but the defect in 
every instance is obviously the result of mere carelessness on the part of the 
transcriber, and has been rectified by some one of the three simple and re¬ 
cognized prosodiacal expedients, viz., the introduction ot an anusvara, the 
reduplication of a consonant, or the change of the quantity ol a vowel. 
In the first line, the word Bhujangi contains an allusion to the name ol the 
# I have stated the argument at greater length in two letters on the subject 
which have appeared in the Indian Antiquary. 
44 
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