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    Banabhatta Info

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    Satyam Mohanty
    Banabhatta was a renowned 7th century Sanskrit poet and scholar born in Pritikuta village, now in Chhapra district of Bihar, India. He became a court poet for King Harsha and his major works included a biography of Harsha called Harshacharita and one of the earliest novels in the world called Kadambari. Banabhatta's writing style was praised for its impeccable grammar and use of figurative language. However, his writing took a strongly Brahminical perspective and emphasized distinctions between castes, which drew some criticism. When rivals tried to discredit him to the king, Banabhatta sincerely defended himself and was honored with royal patron

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    Banabhatta Info

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    Satyam Mohanty
    258 views3 pages
    Banabhatta was a renowned 7th century Sanskrit poet and scholar born in Pritikuta village, now in Chhapra district of Bihar, India. He became a court poet for King Harsha and his major works included a biography of Harsha called Harshacharita and one of the earliest novels in the world called Kadambari. Banabhatta's writing style was praised for its impeccable grammar and use of figurative language. However, his writing took a strongly Brahminical perspective and emphasized distinctions between castes, which drew some criticism. When rivals tried to discredit him to the king, Banabhatta sincerely defended himself and was honored with royal patron

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    Banabhatta was a renowned 7th century Sanskrit poet and scholar born in Pritikuta village, now in Chhapra district of Bihar, India. He became a court poet for King Harsha and his major works included a biography of Harsha called Harshacharita and one of the earliest novels in the world called Kadambari. Banabhatta's writing style was praised for its impeccable grammar and use of figurative language. However, his writing took a strongly Brahminical perspective and emphasized distinctions between castes, which drew some criticism. When rivals tried to discredit him to the king, Banabhatta sincerely defended himself and was honored with royal patron

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    258 views3 pages

    Banabhatta Info

    Uploaded by

    Satyam Mohanty
    Banabhatta was a renowned 7th century Sanskrit poet and scholar born in Pritikuta village, now in Chhapra district of Bihar, India. He became a court poet for King Harsha and his major works included a biography of Harsha called Harshacharita and one of the earliest novels in the world called Kadambari. Banabhatta's writing style was praised for its impeccable grammar and use of figurative language. However, his writing took a strongly Brahminical perspective and emphasized distinctions between castes, which drew some criticism. When rivals tried to discredit him to the king, Banabhatta sincerely defended himself and was honored with royal patron

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    of 3

    Ban­ab­hatta: The great San­skrit poet

    He, it is learnt, used to use clear de­mar­ca­tion be­tween the Brah­mins of the so­-
    ci­ety and the rest of the gen­eral public,

    The Free Press Journal · 22 Feb 2015 · writes MEERA S. SASHITAL.

    In­dia is fa­mous for its San­skrit lit­er­a­ture and San­skrit po­ets since time im­memo­rial. One
    renowned among them was Ban­ab­hatta the San­skrit scholar. Ban­ab­hatta was born around the
    7th cen­tury in a vil­lage in In­dia. He was born in Prit­tikuta vil­lage, which was sit­u­ated on the
    banks of Hi­ranyavahu. The vil­lage used to ex­ist in the dis­trict which is now called Ch­hapra.
    Ban­ab­hatta was born to Chi­trab­hanu and Ra­jadevi in a Bho­jaka fam­ily be­long­ing to
    Vatsyayana go­tra. Ban­ab­hatta was in­tel­li­gent from his child­hood and as he grew he showed
    signs of great po­ten­tial and fin­ished his ed­u­ca­tion with much ded­i­ca­tion and hard work. His
    fa­ther was a learned Brah­min and had a large part in mould­ing his son Ban­ab­hatta who later
    be­came one of the great­est San­skrit prose writer and poet of In­dia and a San­skrit scholar.
    Un­for­tu­nately, his fa­ther’s death in Ban­ab­hatta’s life caused an emo­tional set­back in him. He
    be­came a wan­derer for a while but re­turned to his vil­lage later. On his re­turn he re­ceived a let­-
    ter from Krishna, a cousin of King Harsha which took him to meet the king who was camp­ing
    near the town of Man­i­tara. Af­ter meet­ing the king, Ban­ab­hatta be­came an in­stant favourite of
    King Harsha.
    Ban­ab­hatta was the Asthana Kavi in the court of King Har- sha Vard­hana who reigned from C.
    606647 CE in North In­dia first from Sthanish­vara ( Thanes­var), and later Kanauj. Bana’s
    prin­ci­pal works in­clude a bi­og­ra­phy of Harsha, “the Har­shacharita” (Deeds of Harsha) and
    one of the world’s ear­li­est nov­els “Kadambari”. Bana died be­fore com­plet­ing the novel and it
    was com­pleted by his son Bhushanbhatta. Both th­ese works are said to be noted texts of San­-
    skrit lit­er­a­ture. The other works at­trib­uted to Bana are Chandikasa­taka and a drama, the Par­-
    vati Pari­naya.
    We are told de­tailed ac­count re­gard­ing Banbhatta’s an­ces­try and early life can be re­con­-
    structed from the in­tro­duc­tory verses at­tached to the Kadambari and the first two Uc­cha­vasas
    of the Har­shacharita, while the cir­cum­stances be­hind the com­po­si­tion of the Har­shacharita
    are de­scribed in the third Uc­cha­vasa of the text.
    One of the most fa­mous and ear­li­est nov­els is Kadambari by Ban­ab­hatta as men­toned above. A
    very fa­mous San­skrit pun about Kadambari is as fol­lows: “Kadambari Ra­j­naa­mam aa­haaropi
    na rochate”. This means that while one reads the Kadambari, one be­comes so en­grossed in it
    that even food is forgotten. It seems, it is a very fa­mous or­a­tory pun used in San­skrit.
    Although there is not much that can be crit­i­cally ac­claimed about Chandikasa­taka and Par­-
    vati­pari­naya, but it is said that Ban­ab­hatta used to re­ceive many re­wards and ac­co­lades from
    King Harsha as an ap­pre­ci­a­tion of his work and tal­ent.
    As re­gards Ban­ab­hatta’s writ­ing style we gather that his gram­mar was im­pec­ca­ble and he
    used a lot of fig­ure of speech in his works. His prose was gen­er­ally melo­di­ous and rhyth­mi­cal.
    His pe­cu­liar style was to use longer verses, en­riched by short and crisp words. The sharp­ness
    in his writ­ing style and his patent use of fig­ure of speech has in­spired many a writ­ers af­ter his
    time with his writ­ing Har­shacharita and Kadambari.
    Ban­ab­hatta pretty much proved it that he wrote in a Brah­mini­cal way in his pro­logue to both
    the books. Bana had tried to trace his Brah­min lin­eage and had given it a heav­enly as­pect,
    tried to prove that Brah­mins have orig­i­nated di­rectly from the Gods. He, it is learnt, used to
    use clear de­mar­ca­tion be­tween the Brah­mins of the so­ci­ety and the rest of the gen­eral public.
    For ex­am­ple this fol­low­ing piece of writ­ing from Kadambari shows: “Oh, they lived a life de­-
    void of knowl­edge. Their life is con­demned by wise men. They eat the flesh, honey, which is
    for­bid­den in the civilised so­ci­ety.”
    This shows how caste cen­tric Bana’s writ­ing and per­spec­tive was. His pro-Brah­min writ­ing
    style along with his ex­trav­a­gant writ­ing style drew a lot of crit­i­cism to­wards him from his fel­-
    low courtiers. They tried to dis­grace him by com­plain­ing to the King that he had done non-
    Brah­min things in the past. The news of slan­der and char­ac­ter as­sas­si­na­tion spread by the ri­-
    vals reached Bana and his friends.
    This proved to be a ham­per in the way of earn­ing Bana the royal pa­tron­age. The king was up­-
    set to hear this about his favourite scholar. He asked for a per­sonal meet­ing with Bana. Bana
    sin­cerely told the King that he had al­ways been true to his faith, knowl­edge and val­ues of
    truth. There was so much sin­cer­ity in his words that the King was very much moved and hon­-
    oured him with great re­wards.
    The Public Li­brary in Au­rangabad, the real birth­place of Ban­ab­hatta, still it seems has the
    manuscripts of Ban­ab­hatta’s works archived in it. Piroo vil­lage of Haspura block in Au­-
    rangabad, Bi­har, is the real birth­place of Ban­ab­hatta. It is in­ter­est­ing to note that the present
    day vil­lagers are Mus­lims who claim to be descen­dants of Ban­ab­hatta and call them­selves
    Bhu­mi­har Pathans.

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