The ''Harshacharita'' (, ; English: ''The deeds of Harsha'') is the biography of

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

n emperor Harsha by Banabhatta, also known as Bana, who was a

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

writer of seventh-century CE India. He was the ''Asthana Kavi'', meaning ''Court Poet'', of Harsha. The ''Harshacharita'' was the first composition of Bana and is considered to be the beginning of writing of historical poetic works in the Sanskrit language.

Historical Biography

The ''Harshacharita'' ranks as the first historical biography in Sanskrit although it is written in a florid and fanciful style. Bana's detailed and vivid descriptions of rural India's natural environment as well as the extraordinary industry of the Indian people exudes the vitality of life at that time. Since he received the patronage of the emperor Harsha, his descriptions of his patron are not an unbiased appraisal and presents the emperor's actions in an overly favourable light.

The ''Harṣacharita'', written in ornate poetic prose, narrates the biography of the emperor Harsha in eight ''ucchvāsa''s (chapters). In the first two ''ucchvāsa''s, Bana gives an account of his ancestry and his early life. He was the great emperor. The earliest clear reference for chaturanga (the common ancestor of the board games

chess Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves Perfect information, no hidden information and no elements of game of chance, chance. It is played on a square chessboard, board consisting of 64 squares arran ...

, chatrang (Persian chess),

xiangqi Xiangqi (; ), commonly known as Chinese chess or elephant chess, is a Strategy game, strategy board game for two players. It is the most popular board game in China. Xiangqi is in the same family of games as shogi, janggi, chess, Western ches ...

(Chinese chess), janggi (Korean chess), shogi (Japanese), sittuyin (Burmese chess), makruk (Thai chess) and modern Indian chess) comes from ''Harshacharitha'':

Commentaries

The only commentary available is the ''Sanketa'' written by Shankara, a scholar from Kashmir. It seems that Ruyyaka also wrote a commentary known as the ''Harsacaritavartika'', which has not yet been found. The work was translated into English by Edward Byles Cowell and Frederick William Thomas in 1897. The military historian Kaushik Roy describes ''Harshacharita'' as "historical fiction" but with a factually correct foundation. This work was translated into Telugu prose by M. V. Ramanachari (Medepalli Venkata Ramanacharyulu) of Maharajah's College, Vizianagaram in 1929.

References

External links

* Indian biographies 7th-century Sanskrit literature 7th-century Indian books Biographies about royalty Harsha {{royal-bio-book-stub

Historical Biography

Contents

Commentaries

See also

References

Further reading

External links