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modern research has not pen etf ated, In this diversity of opinion some of the pertinent theories had better be examined.
: ,$/.. Hippolite Fanche assigns Kalidasa to the reign of the posthumous child that ascended the throne on the death of the voluptuous King Agnimitra. This would take back Kali-dasa to about the eighth century B. C.
If Kalidasa were to be a contemporary of a reigning king, Ms omission to give any history of his own ruler is unaccountable. Besides, as we had already said, the Raghuvamsa canndt i>e £aid to be a complete poem. Tradition says that the .sequel to the history of Solar Kings has been yet unrecovered. The simple fact that Kalidasa's account closes there cannot conclusively prove the end of the dynasty itself. The Vishjro-purana mentions a list of thirty-seven Bangs after Agnjmitra, Bhavabhuti's age is with tolerable certainty fixed ttxthe eighth I | ! century A. D. Granting Fanche's theory, there is a wide gap
of sixteen centuries between them—which long distance of time must have caused a corresponding change in style and language. The artificiality of diction discernible in Bhavabhuti can at the,most allow an interval of five centuries and no more.
,... .Sir..William Jones places Kalidasa, in the first century B.C, .This date rests on .no other foundation than that of tradition which runs to the effect that there was once a king named Vikramaditya, who after defeating the Sakas or Scythians established-the Samvcti era which commences 57 RC. Thus runs the mernorial verse:—, : '"'. v ,: ., • ... ..
^ | 'Jrrent with a correct history of his own life or writings.' If any part of Indian chronology is unsettled, it is the age of Kalidasa, whereinto the brightest light ofs enjoined quite in the