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principle that versification is only a superfluous ornament of poetry and real poetry may he written in prose as well as in
The difficulties which attended eur determination of the approximate date df Subandhu are not so hopelessly insurmountable here. Bamafs Harshacharita is a historical work, which gives us a tolerably authentic account of his life as well as of his patron Harsha-Vardhana of Kanyakubja. The Chinese traveller Hicmen-Ths^ng gives an account of Harsha's reign and a -description of his court, as found during his visit thither on the occasion of some Buddhist festival The name Holichafa-tana has been rendered by M. Stanislas Julien into the Sanskrit Harshavardhana, The account of Harsha's reign as given in the Chinese work closely concurs with the story of Harsha's life as described in Bana's Harsha charita* The date of Harsfaa being settled, that of Bana is of coarse determined. The date -of the pilgrim's travel according to Chinese chronology is frcm 629 to 645 A. D. and Harsha, says the traveller, had already reigned thirty years and his death was ten year later, so that the period of Harsha's reign would occupy forty years from 610 to 650 A. D. Bana may therefore be safely assigned to the first half of the seventh century.
Bana was born of Chitrabhanu and Rajadevi in the village of Prithukuta on the banks of the Sona river. He lost his mother when young and was brought up under the care of his father. When he was fourteen his father died. By this time^ he had acquired, a fair knowledge of Sanskrit.
Bana and the family to which he belonged were devotees of "Siva. With the death of Chitrabhanu, his life changed, Left.est of sober criticism*