IDENTITY OF DANDIN 15 and romance. The graphic description, in the Avatisundarikatha,' of the old age, which clearly betrays an element of personal touch, also supports the view that it has come from the writer in his ripe old age. During the long gap, the author might have allowed him- self to be strongly influenced, in general, by the literary tenden- cies of the age which evidently patronised ornate style and diction, and, in particular, by the laboured style of the works of Subandhu and Bana. He might have been led by the desire to follow the artificialities and mannerisms of the age in his later work in order to come up to the literary aspirations of the time. His study of poetics also seems to have made an impact on his literary pursuits, resulting, on one hand, into his compo- sition of the Kavyādarśa and, on the other, into his general preference for elaborate diction. It may be for this reason that while Daśakumāracarita is characterised by a freedom from poetic ambitions and literary conventions, the later romance is marked by a highly flavoured and artificial manner of story- telling vying with that of Vasavadatta and Kadambarī. It may, however, be made clear that the difference of style in the two works chiefly refers to the external devices of story- telling, and especially to the elaboration of the theme with episodic tales and descriptive matter, and that it seldom relates to what we may call diction or riti which is intrinsically of affinitive nature in the two romances. It is to be particularly noted that both the works exhibit the general characteristics of the Vaidarbha diction with its ten qualities as enumerated in the Kävyādarśa. Again, like the rhetorician, the author of Avantisundarikatha pays his compliments to the Vaidarbha märga and makes a hint that he has followed that path in the work.3 This diction of the Vaidarbhas possesses, besides other excellences, the quality of force (ojas), characterised by the use 1. ASK pp. 41-2; see below, pt. II, ch. IV 2. I. 40-102 3. KA I. 41, 42 etc.; ASK, Intro., v. 15. The use of the term vartman 'path' for diction is noticeable here; KA (I. 42, 92) also used the term along with its equivalents märga and paddhati.
