The Naishadhīya (also called Naishadha-charita), in twenty-two cantos, deals with the story of Nala, king of Nishada, the well-known episode of the Mahābhārata. It was composed by Çrīharsha, who belongs to the latter half of the twelfth century.
These six artificial epics are recognised as Mahākāvyas, or “Great Poems,” and have all been commented on by Mallinātha. The characteristics of this higher class are set forth by Daṇḍin in his Kāvyādarça, or “Mirror of Poetry” (i. 14–19). Their subjects must be derived from epic story (itihāsa), they should be extensive, and ought to be embellished with descriptions of cities, seas, mountains, seasons, sunrise, weddings, battles fought by the hero, and so forth.
An extensive Mahākāvya, in fifty cantos, is the Haravijaya, or “Victory of Çiva,” by a Kashmirian poet named Ratnākara, who belongs to the ninth century.
Another late epic, narrating the fortunes of the same hero as the Naishadhīya, is the Nalodaya, or “Rise of Nala,” which describes the restoration to power of King Nala after he had lost his all. Though attributed to Kālidāsa, it is unmistakably the product of a much later age. The chief aim of the author is to show off his skill in the manipulation of the most varied and artificial metres, as well as all the elaborate tricks of style exhibited in the latest Kāvyas. Rhyme even is introduced, and that, too, not only at the end of, but within metrical lines. The really epic material is but scantily treated, narrative making way for long descriptions and lyrical effusions. Thus the second and longest of the four cantos of the poem is purely lyrical, describing only the bliss of the newly-wedded pair, with all kinds of irrelevant additions.
The culmination of artificiality is attained by the Rāghava-pāṇḍavīya, a poem composed by Kavirāja, who perhaps flourished about A.D. 800. It celebrates simultaneously the actions of Rāghava or Rāma and of the Pāṇḍava princes. The composition is so arranged that by the use of ambiguous words and phrases the story of the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata is told at one and the same time. The same words, according to the sense in which they are understood, narrate the events of each epic. A tour de force of this kind is doubtless unique in the literatures of the world. Kavirāja has, however, found imitators in India itself.
A Mahākāvya which is as yet only known in MS. is the Navasāhasānka-charita, a poem celebrating the doings of Navasāhasānka, otherwise Sindhurāja, a king of Mālava, and composed by a poet named Padmagupta, who lived about 1000 A.D. It consists of eighteen cantos, containing over 1500 stanzas in nineteen different metres. The poet refrains from the employment of metrical tricks; but he greatly impedes the progress of the narrative by introducing interminable speeches and long-winded descriptions.
We may mention, in conclusion, that there is also an epic in Prākrit which is attributed to Kālidāsa. This is the Setu-bandha, “Building of the Bridge,” or Rāvaṇavadha, “Death of Rāvaṇa,” which relates the story of Rāma. It is supposed to have been composed by the poet to commemorate the building of a bridge of boats across the Vitastā (Jhelum) by King Pravarasena of Kashmir.
There are a few prose romances dating from the sixth and seventh centuries, which being classed as Kāvyas by the Sanskrit writers on poetics, may be mentioned in this place. The abundant use of immense compounds, which of course makes them very difficult reading, is an essential characteristic of the style of these works. As to their matter, they contain but little action, consisting largely of scenes which are strung together by a meagre thread of narrative, and are made the occasion of lengthy descriptions full of long strings of comparisons and often teeming with puns. In spite, however, of their highly artificial and involved style, many really poetical thoughts may be found embedded in what to the European taste is an unattractive setting.
The Daça-kumāra-charita, or “Adventures of the Ten Princes,” contains stories of common life and reflects a corrupt state of society. It is by Daṇḍin, and probably dates from the sixth century A.D. Vāsavadattā, by Subandhu, relates the popular story of the heroine Vāsavadattā, princess of Ujjayinī, and Udayana, king of Vatsa. It was probably written quite at the beginning of the seventh century. Slightly later is Bāṇa’s Kādambarī, a poetical romance narrating the fortunes of a princess of that name. Another work of a somewhat similar character by the same author is the Harsha-charita, a romance in eight chapters, in which Bāṇa attempts to give some account of the life of King Harshavardhana of Kanauj. There is, however, but little narrative. Thus in twenty-five pages of the eighth chapter there are to be found five long descriptions, extending on the average to two pages, to say nothing of shorter ones. There is, for instance, a long disquisition, covering four pages, and full of strings of comparisons, about the miseries of servitude. A servant, “like a painted bow, is for ever bent in the one act of distending a string of imaginary virtues, but there is no force in him; like a heap of dust-sweepings gathered by a broom, he carries off toilet-leavings; like the meal offered to the Divine Mothers, he is cast out into space even at night; like a pumping machine, he has left all weight behind him and bends even for water,” and so on. Soon after comes a description, covering two pages, of the trees in a forest. This is immediately followed by another page enumerating the various kinds of students thronging the wood in order to avail themselves of the teaching of a great Buddhist sage; they even include monkeys busily engaged in ritual ceremonies, devout parrots expounding a Buddhist dictionary, owls lecturing on the various births of Buddha, and tigers who have given up eating flesh under the calming influence of Buddhist teaching. Next comes a page describing the sage himself. “He was clad in a very soft red cloth, as if he were the eastern quarter of the sky bathed in the morning sunshine, teaching the other quarters to assume the red Buddhist attire, while they were flushed with the pure red glow of his body like a ruby freshly cut.” Soon after comes a long account, bristling with puns, of a disconsolate princess lying prostrate in the wood—“lost in the forest and in thought, bent upon death and the root of a tree, fallen upon calamity and her nurse’s bosom, parted from her husband and happiness, burned with the fierce sunshine and the woes of widowhood, her mouth closed with silence as well as by her hand, and held fast by her companions as well as by grief. I saw her with her kindred and her graces all gone, her ears and her soul left bare, her ornaments and her aims abandoned, her bracelets and her hopes broken, her companions and the needle-like grass-spears clinging round her feet, her eye and her beloved fixed within her bosom, her sighs and her hair long, her limbs and her merits exhausted, her aged attendants and her streaming tears falling down at her feet,” and so forth.