DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.53502#0015
1ntr eduction
1
himself as an extract from the A. and that statement is
borne out by the contents of his work, though not to
mention some minor points of difference it contains
nothing corresponding to Adhikaranas II, III, and IV,
the sober administrative and legal technical!des of
which were probably considered too uninteresting for
insertion in a popular versified Manual of Polity. Un-
fortunately the date of the Nitisara is less certain than
desirable. Thus it is hardly safe to adopt the opinion
of Re Mitra in his edition of this work that the Hindus
in the island of Bali imported the Nitisara into Bali as
early as the fourth century, A. D. The importation
may have taken place at a much later period than that.
Nor is much reliance to be placed on the name of the
political nun Kamandaki in Bhavabhuti’s Malatlma-
dhava (about 700 A. D.), because a mere similarity of
names does net prove much; or on the reference to
the Kamandakiyaniti in the first chapter of Dandm’s
Dasakumaracarita, because that chapter is probably not
genuine. It may be that Kamandaka was a contempo-
rary of Varahamihira (6th century), as was conjectured
by A. Weber and Formichi. but it is a significant fact
that his work is nowhere alluded to by the authors of
the earliest versions of the Pancatantra, nor by the
ancient commentators of M., though these writers show
themselves acquainted with the A. The Nitisara is
indeed once quoted by Vamana (800 A. D.)1 and a
great deal in the more recent versions of the Panca-
tantra including the Hitopadesa and in the modern S.
Indian Commentary of Nandana on M., as well as in
the Nltimayukha of Nllakantha (17th cent.) which con-
tains a wealth of quotations from the NitisSra. The A.
1 P. V: Kaue, I A. 1911, 236.
1
himself as an extract from the A. and that statement is
borne out by the contents of his work, though not to
mention some minor points of difference it contains
nothing corresponding to Adhikaranas II, III, and IV,
the sober administrative and legal technical!des of
which were probably considered too uninteresting for
insertion in a popular versified Manual of Polity. Un-
fortunately the date of the Nitisara is less certain than
desirable. Thus it is hardly safe to adopt the opinion
of Re Mitra in his edition of this work that the Hindus
in the island of Bali imported the Nitisara into Bali as
early as the fourth century, A. D. The importation
may have taken place at a much later period than that.
Nor is much reliance to be placed on the name of the
political nun Kamandaki in Bhavabhuti’s Malatlma-
dhava (about 700 A. D.), because a mere similarity of
names does net prove much; or on the reference to
the Kamandakiyaniti in the first chapter of Dandm’s
Dasakumaracarita, because that chapter is probably not
genuine. It may be that Kamandaka was a contempo-
rary of Varahamihira (6th century), as was conjectured
by A. Weber and Formichi. but it is a significant fact
that his work is nowhere alluded to by the authors of
the earliest versions of the Pancatantra, nor by the
ancient commentators of M., though these writers show
themselves acquainted with the A. The Nitisara is
indeed once quoted by Vamana (800 A. D.)1 and a
great deal in the more recent versions of the Panca-
tantra including the Hitopadesa and in the modern S.
Indian Commentary of Nandana on M., as well as in
the Nltimayukha of Nllakantha (17th cent.) which con-
tains a wealth of quotations from the NitisSra. The A.
1 P. V: Kaue, I A. 1911, 236.