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26
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
one drawn therefrom by Yajñeśvara.¹ In Tawney's translation,
Mayura is represented as Bāṇa's brother-in-law, having Bāṇa's
sister as his wife. Besides, Bāṇa is made out to be the author of
the Süryaśataka, while Mayura is said to have written the
Candisataka, and it is Bāṇa, not Mayūra, who is cursed for his
eavesdropping propensities. In Yajñeśvara's account, on the
contrary, Bāṇa's wife is said to be Mayüra's sister.
The account as given in Tawney's manuscripts is not always
very lucid, and once, at least, is self-contradictory. It runs as
follows:-
Then two pandits, related as sister's husband and wife's brother, who
were called Mayūra and Bāņa, and were engaged in a perpetual rivalry
on account of their own respective literary merits, had obtained an hon-
ourable position in the king's court. One day the pandit Bāna went to
his sister's house at night, to pay her a visit, and as he was lying down
at the door, he heard his sister's husband trying to conciliate her, and
paying attention to what was being said, he managed to catch these lines :-
"" The night is almost gone, and the emaciated moon is, so to speak,
wasting away,
This lamp, having come into the power of sleep, seems drowsily to nod,
Haughtiness is generally appeased by submission, but, alas! you do
not, even in spite of submission, abandon your anger,"
'When Bāṇa had heard these three lines repeated over and over again
by Mayūra, he added a fourth line:-
"Cruel one, your heart also is hard from immediate proximity to your
breast."
'When Mayūra's wife heard this fourth line from the mouth of her
brother, being angry and ashamed, she cursed him, saying, "Become a
leper". Owing to the might of the vow of his sister, who observed
strictly her vow of fidelity to her husband, Bāna was seized with the
malady of leprosy from that very moment. In the morning he went into
the assembly-hall of the king, with his body covered with a rug. When
Mayūra, with a soft voice, like a peacock, said to him in the Präkrit lan-
guage, "Ten million blessings on you!" the king, who was foremost
among the discerning, looked at Bāṇa with astonishment, and thought in
¹ Yajñeśvara Sastri edited the Saryaśataka of Mayūra, with a com-
mentary composed by himself. I have been unable to secure a copy of
this work of Yajñeśvara, but Bühler, writing in 1872 (cf. IA, vol. 1, p.
115, footnote), refers to it as being in course of publication at that time.
The portion of the commentary that I give below is quoted by Jhalakikara,
in his second edition of the Kavyaprakāśa, cap. 1, 2-3, p. 10-11, Bombay,
1901.
The stanza beginning gataprāyā rätriḥ, etc. See above, p. 23, note 1.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
one drawn therefrom by Yajñeśvara.¹ In Tawney's translation,
Mayura is represented as Bāṇa's brother-in-law, having Bāṇa's
sister as his wife. Besides, Bāṇa is made out to be the author of
the Süryaśataka, while Mayura is said to have written the
Candisataka, and it is Bāṇa, not Mayūra, who is cursed for his
eavesdropping propensities. In Yajñeśvara's account, on the
contrary, Bāṇa's wife is said to be Mayüra's sister.
The account as given in Tawney's manuscripts is not always
very lucid, and once, at least, is self-contradictory. It runs as
follows:-
Then two pandits, related as sister's husband and wife's brother, who
were called Mayūra and Bāņa, and were engaged in a perpetual rivalry
on account of their own respective literary merits, had obtained an hon-
ourable position in the king's court. One day the pandit Bāna went to
his sister's house at night, to pay her a visit, and as he was lying down
at the door, he heard his sister's husband trying to conciliate her, and
paying attention to what was being said, he managed to catch these lines :-
"" The night is almost gone, and the emaciated moon is, so to speak,
wasting away,
This lamp, having come into the power of sleep, seems drowsily to nod,
Haughtiness is generally appeased by submission, but, alas! you do
not, even in spite of submission, abandon your anger,"
'When Bāṇa had heard these three lines repeated over and over again
by Mayūra, he added a fourth line:-
"Cruel one, your heart also is hard from immediate proximity to your
breast."
'When Mayūra's wife heard this fourth line from the mouth of her
brother, being angry and ashamed, she cursed him, saying, "Become a
leper". Owing to the might of the vow of his sister, who observed
strictly her vow of fidelity to her husband, Bāna was seized with the
malady of leprosy from that very moment. In the morning he went into
the assembly-hall of the king, with his body covered with a rug. When
Mayūra, with a soft voice, like a peacock, said to him in the Präkrit lan-
guage, "Ten million blessings on you!" the king, who was foremost
among the discerning, looked at Bāṇa with astonishment, and thought in
¹ Yajñeśvara Sastri edited the Saryaśataka of Mayūra, with a com-
mentary composed by himself. I have been unable to secure a copy of
this work of Yajñeśvara, but Bühler, writing in 1872 (cf. IA, vol. 1, p.
115, footnote), refers to it as being in course of publication at that time.
The portion of the commentary that I give below is quoted by Jhalakikara,
in his second edition of the Kavyaprakāśa, cap. 1, 2-3, p. 10-11, Bombay,
1901.
The stanza beginning gataprāyā rätriḥ, etc. See above, p. 23, note 1.