Svapna-vasavadatta and Bhava-prakasa

Extract

In support of his view that the drama published by him under the title Svapna-vāsavadatta in the Trivandrum Sanskrit Series (to which I shall henceforth refer as “the TSS. play”) is the work of Bhāsa, Mahāmahōpâdhyāya Gaṇapati Śāstri cites in JRAS., Oct. 1924, p. 668, a passage from the unpublished Bhāva-prakāśa of Śāradātanaya. I have examined three MSS. of the latter work. It nowhere ascribes the play to Bhāsa; but the context of the quotation and the observations on nāndī throw some light on the Bhāsa-problem.