INTRODUCTION 3. DATE AND PERSONAL ACCOUNT OF SVAYAMBHU. Sva y am bhu's Date. Nowhere in his three available works Svayambhū has made a statement giving us the definite and exact date of composition of any one of them. Nor has he referred to any ruler or political event of his times, which can help us in fixing his date with some certainty. Thrice he has recorded the day and the nakşatra of completing a particular portion of his epics, but unfortunately at none of these places, he mentions the year and hence, as will be shown below, these chronological data loose all significance. Under the circumstances we have to fall back upon the usual method of gleaning bits of information from Svayambhu's writings and from later references to him and trying to squeeze something out of them. Svayambhū has mentioned some of his distinguished pre- decessors in the domain of literature. In the Svayambhücchandas he quotes from no less than fifty-eight poets. But most of them become known to us for the first time. These are mere names to us and therefore practically of little use in determining Svayam- bhu's date. But the writers mentioned by Svayambhū in the introductions' to PC. and RC. are important for this purpose. Well- known names like those of Băna, Sri-Harsa, Bhámaha, Dandin, Ravişeņa figure there. Of these Ravişeņa, who is respectfully called ācārya by Svayambhū and whose Padmacarita served as the basis for his PC. is the latest. Ravisena completed his work in the 1204th year after Mahavira i.e. in 677-678 A.D. This gives us the earlier limit of Svayambhu's time. On the other hand, of the numerous authors that know and refer to Svayambhu or his works, Puşpadanta is the earliest. In his Mahāpurāna he has mentioned Svayambhủ twice. Firstly he appears in the company of Bhāravi, Bhāsa, Vyāsa, Kalidāsa, Caturmukha, Drona, fśāna, Bāņa--all of them distinguished pre- decessors of Puspadanta and considered at those times standard authors to be studied by those who wanted to be adepts in litera- ture or aspired to be good poets. Second time he is aptly remem- bered' (as an illustrious author of a Rāma epic in Apabhramsa) in the beginning of the section on Rāmāyana (MP. 69-79). The Mahāpurāna was begun in 959-960 A.D. Thus we get 677-960 A.D. as the limits within which Svayam- bhū flourished. Let us see if this interval of about three centuries can be shortened. First of all it should be understood that when Svayambhū talks of his having tackled the theme of Rāmāyana through the favour of Acārya Ravişeņa this does not necessarily mean that he was actually a disciple of the latter or that they were contemporaries. It may mean simply this that Ravişena's work supplied so far as the subject-matter was concerned the basis, plan and pattern fox (1) See PC. 1, 2-3, Appendix I. 57. (2) Premi, 1942, 386. (3) MP. 1 9 4-5. (4) MP. 69 1 7.
