literature especially in this period — a period at which an •elaborate style of artificial writing had already taken firm roots and supplanted the simpler and more elegant models, finished by the school of Kalidasa and Sudraka.
Subandhu illustrates the expressive power of the Sanskrit language. His incessant aim is a so to choose and dispose his -dictidn as to render it susceptible of a diversity of interpretation. Such an attempt on its face demonstrates the vast amount of his learning arid the inexhaustible store of his vocabulary. The terms in which he introduces himself to his readers are noteworthy : —
^
• , • .
Here he particularly directs the reader's attention to the
most observable traits of his performance, viz. 'his dexterity in framing disicdurse made of equivoques in every syllable.'7
Nothing definite regarding the age of Subandhu has rewarded past researches. With some confidence wfe'may rely on two limits — first the reign of Vikramaditya of Ujjaiii and second that of Harsha Siladitya II of Kanouj. As to the first internal evidence from the Vasavadatta gives us some clue where the poet, while regretting the splendour of the great King's rule, satirises the degeneracy of his successors. The other landmark is from the prefatory verses to the Harsha-charita of Bani ! The determination of the exact age of King Vikramaditya has been subject to a great diversity of views, so that the nearest amount of exactness is that he lived somewhere between the -ist century B. C, and the 6th century A. D. Aderivative forms and presents a greater number of causal and desiderative inflections. Tradition however has not accounted for the absolute absence of any of the intensive or frequentative tenses. But such fancies as the absolute exclusion of certain words or grammatical forms are not unknown to Sanskritperstructure upon. resembles the Brahmanas but with a few varMfcm. tke temts of the Bhashyas have