Dashakumaracharita - The Author

The Author

Nothing specific about the author's life is known with any degree of confidence. He is traditionally regarded as also the author of Kavyadarsha (काव्यादर्श), a manual on poetry and rhetoric. However, Agashe doubts this attribution on the grounds that the two works differ very widely in style and tone. Since a poet Dandin (presumably distinct from a prose writer) is also mentioned in sundry ancient Indian texts, he is led to conjecture the existence of at least three distinct Dandins. Since Dandin (literally, a staff-bearer) is also a common adjective for ascetics or religious mendicants, Wilson doubts whether it is the author's proper name at all.

On the other hand, Kale accepts that Kvy. and Dsc. have been written by the same person. On the basis of textual evidence from the Dsc., he opines that the author must have lived earlier than the Mohammedan invasion of India, i.e., before the 11th century. Moreover, since the Kvy. refers to the Prakrit poem Setubandha (सेतुबंध) composed in the 5th century, he is led to 6th-8th century as the most probable time of composition. (This remains in some tension with the fact that Dsc. is not referred to by any other text until the 10th century. There is also a conflicting tradition, generally considered unreliable, which makes Dandin a contemporary of Kalidasa.)

Based on certain descriptions in the Dsc., Kale further conjectures that Dandin must have lived in, or at least must have been familiar with, the Vidarbha region of India.