‘Paling the face of every beauty here, making the sky’s vault to ripple with the liquid moonlight of her loveliness, and breaking the haughty pride in the hearts of maids that regard her, appeareth the moon-like orb of her face as she moveth straight to and fro in her sport on the swing.’ The effective alliteration and paronomasia of this stanza are surpassed by the metrical perfection of the next but one, where the Pṛthvī metre, with ‘its jingling tribrachs and bell-like, chiming cretics’, is employed in a stanza which admirably conveys by its sound the sense at which it aims: raṇantamaṇiṇeuraṁ jhaṇajhaṇantahāracchaḍaṁ kaṇakkaṇiakin̄kiṇīmuhalamehalāḍambaraṁ vilolavalaāvalījaṇiamañjusiñjāravaṁ ṇa kassa maṇomohaṇaṁ sasimuhīa hindolaṇaṁ. ‘With the tinkling jewelled anklets, With the sound of lovely jingles With the flashing jewelled necklace, From the rows of rolling bangles, With the show of girdles garrulous Pray whose heart is not bewildered From their ringing, ringing bells While the moon-faced maiden swings?’ Excellent also is the king’s address [494] to the Açoka when made to blossom by the touch of the foot of his young beloved, but more characteristic in his comment, [495] inspired by the Vidūṣaka’s ungallant comparison of the fresh beauty of the maiden with the passée comeliness of his queen: bālāu honti kuūhaleṇa emeya cavalacittāo daralasiathaṇīsu puṇo ṇivasai maaraddhaarahassaṁ. ‘Though maidens in their young zest for life are fickle of faith, yet it is with them—their breasts just budding—that the mystery of the dolphin-bannered doth abide.’ For technique Rājaçekhara is of interest, because he uses in the Karpūramañjarī the old form of prologue quite openly, with the Nāndī recited doubtless by the Sūtradhāra, followed by the advent of the Sthāpaka who recites two verses. It is noteworthy that the manuscripts often alter the Sthāpaka to the Sūtradhāra despite the clear sense of the text. The late Pārvatīpariṇaya likewise has a Nāndī before the Sūtradhāra speaks a verse. It is probable that the older technique long persisted in the south. Rājaçekhara’s indebtedness to his predecessors is wholesale; the influence of Kālidāsa, Harṣa, and Bhavabhūti is obvious, and it is probably an indication of his contemporaneity with, or slight posteriority to, Murāri that he does not seem to have known his writings. Influence of the vernacular or of Prākrit is to be seen in his occasional use of rhyme, such as is found in the later Gītagovinda or the Mohamudgara. 6. BHĪMAṬA AND KṢEMĪÇVARA A verse attributed to Rājaçekhara mentions the five dramas of Bhīmaṭa, of which the Svapnadaçānana won him chief fame. He is described as a Kaliñjarapati, whence the suggestion has been made that he was a connection of the Candella king Harṣa of Jejākabhukti, who, we know, was a contemporary of Mahīpāla of Kanyakubja, patron of Rājaçekhara, but we have no ground for positive assertion. [496]