Vasavadatta

Vasavadatta is also a character in the Svapnavasavadatta and the Vina-Vasavadatta
Vasavadhata - oil painting by Rajasekharan Parameswaran.

Vasavadatta (Sanskrit: वासवदत्ता, Vāsavadattā) is a classical Sanskrit romantic tale (akhyayika) written in an ornate style by Subandhu, whose time period isn't precisely known. He is generally taken to have written the work in the second quarter of the seventh century.[1] However, scholar Maan Singh has stated that he was a courtier of the Gupta emperors Kumaragupta I (414-455) and Skandagupta (455-467), dating him between 385 and 465 AD.[2]

The work's style has been described as "developed, elaborate, ornate and pedantic" and has influenced later prose writers.[2] The Kanchanadarpana of Sivarama Tripathin (18th century) and the Tattvadipini of Jagaddhara are two significant works of criticism and commentary on the Vasavadatta.

Vasavadatta is one of the earliest known texts that mention Chaturanga, the earliest known precursor to Chess.

Louis Herbert Gray first translated Vasavadatta into English, which was published by the Columbia University Press in 1913 as the eighth volume of the 13 volume Columbia University Indo-Iranian Series in between 1901–32 and edited by A. V. Williams Jackson.[3] Harinath De completed an English translation in 1908, but it was not published until 1994 (Sanskrit College, Calcutta).[4]

  1. ^ Keith, Arthur Berriedale (1993). A History of Sanskrit Literature, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, ISBN 81-208-1100-3, p.308
  2. ^ a b Singh, Maan (1993). Subandhu, New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, ISBN 81-7201-509-7, pp. 9-11.
  3. ^ Keith, A. Berriedale (October 1914). "Vāsavadattā by Louis H. Gray". The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland: 1100–1104. JSTOR 25189260.
  4. ^ Steven Moore, The Novel, An Alternative History: Beginnings to 1600 (Continuum, 2010), 425.