DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

304 RUIN OF PATNA [9.2
of village economy only strengthens the contrast.
The finest efflorescence of classical Sanskrit literature, however,
coincides with the first great increase in number of village settlements.
Though his very century still remains unknown. Kalidasa is reasonably
assigned to the court of Candragupta II Vikramaditya, between A. D. 380
and 410. Bhasa may have been earlier. The third outstanding dramatistpoet,
Bhava-bhuti, flourished as one of the court poets of Yasovarman
of Kanauj, defeated (and probably killed) in a transient raid about A. D.
736 by Lalitaditya-Muktapida of Kasmir. Harsa of Kanauj (A. D. 606-
647 approximately) was himself a dramatist of high ability, though nastyminded
critics hint that his many court poets (led by the great Bana,
who also wrote the most ornate Sanskrit prose)
prepared works to be signed by the emperor. The Prakrit spoken by
women and servants had in these conventional dramas become as artificial
as Sanskrit, as far away from the popular idioms of the common people.
It was the golden age of India, say our historians. Indeed, more gold coins
of the Guptas have been discovered than of any preceding (or most later)
kings. Neverthetess, in this golden age, the great Magadhan city of
Patna, which had been a capital of Candragupta II, dwindled to a village
(Beal 2.86), though the countryside remained as prosperous (Beal 2.82)
and fertile as under the Mauryans. The great Asokan monuments were
looked upon as of supernatural construction. The main Gupta capital
Ujjain was never the world’s greatest city as Patna had been in its great days
; the succeeding capital Kanauj was still less impressive. Kings thereafter
kept on the move with army, harem, court, and secretariat, which could
not be fed without -eating up the surplus wherever it was produced. Grants
were-usually dated from the skandhavara, “ camp headquarters.”
Fig. 37. Signature of Dhruvascna I of Valabhi
(A. D.525) sva-hasto mama -maharaja-
Dhruvasenasya; on a. copper plate land-grant
to a brahmin Rotghamitra