Subandhu’s Vasavadattānṛtadhārā

Summary

V. Raghavan contributes a brief philological note concerning Subandhu, the author of the Sanskrit romance Vāsavadattā. Drawing on Abhinavagupta’s commentary Abhinavabhāratī on Bharata’s Nāṭyaśāstra, Raghavan quotes passages in which Abhinavagupta cites a praveśaka (introductory scene) from a play called Nṛttavāra. This praveśaka illustrates the emotion of saṃrambha (ferocity) and is said to have been modelled on an episode from Subandhu’s Vāsavadattā narrative. Raghavan also notes references to Subandhu in the Nṛtyadarpaṇa of Rāmacandra and Guṇacandra and in the Avantisundarī of Dandin, suggesting that the story of Vāsavadattā was widely known and formed part of the literary repertoire of dramatists. By collating these citations and providing manuscript references, Raghavan clarifies the reception history of Subandhu’s work. The note serves to document a rare example of intertextuality between classical Sanskrit prose romance and dramatic theory.