Essay name: Bhasa (critical and historical study)
Author: A. D. Pusalker
This book studies Bhasa, the author of thirteen plays ascribed found in the Trivandrum Sanskrit Series. These works largely adhere to the rules of traditional Indian theatrics known as Natya-Shastra.
Page 98 of: Bhasa (critical and historical study)
98 (of 564)
External source: Shodhganga (Repository of Indian theses)
Download the PDF file of the original publication
78
Pratima where Kautilya is not mentioned but his
predecessor B?haspati is enumerated, is against the
priority of the latter.
Thus the external evidence places the fourth century
B. C. as the later limit.
The cumulative effect of the internal and external
evidence is to place Bh─sa in the fifth or the fourth century
B. C. Dr. Banerji Sastri has considered Bh─sa's priority
to V─tsy─yana and Bharata, but disputes his priority to
Manu, Kautilya etc. Bh─sa is certainly later than
Manu (i.e. Manaviya Dharmasastra) but not the
Manusmrti as we have it at present.
汗汗
ARGUMENTUM EX SILENTIO'
97 ? derive
by itself is possibly of no avail. If it supports the date
arrived at by other sources, the argument would
some force. The silence must be of such a type as not.
to be explicable except on the ground of priority of the
writer to the facts about which he is silent. There must,
further, be a definite occasion for the poet or the writer
to mention the fact on which he happens to be silent.
In Bh─sa, the non-mention of the following things indicates
the antiquity of the author.
The first thing that would strike a student of Bh─sa
in this connection is that all the characters of his plays
are Northerners. Not only that; the place of action also
is mostly North India, the only exceptions being the
R─ma plays, where the action takes place in the South.
Only one place and one mountain is all that our poet
knows of the topography of the South. Now we know
that in A?oka's time much of Southern India was
known, and that the mission headed by his son Mahendra
penetrated as far as Ceylon. T─mrapar?┤ is mentioned
in Rock Edicts II and XIII, which also refer to Ceylon.2
M─mulan─r, an ancient Tamil author, speaks of the
Mauryan invasions in the past as far as Tinnevelly
District. Greek writers and some Mysore inscriptions
suggest "that the first Maurya did conquer a considerable
portion of trans-Vindhyan India". Our poet on
the
view about the quotation in the Arthas─stra while reviewing Prof. Dikshitar's work
in the Modern Review, 1930, June, p. 73.
1 JBORS, 1923, pp. 66-67, 76-77. 2 Roy Chaudhuri, PHAI, 2nd edition,
p. 208; Contra, Smith, Asoka, 3rd edition, p. 162. 3 Roy Chaudhuri, PHAI, 2nd
edition, p. 168.
