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The Authorship of the Nalodaya
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
Nalōdaya, the short alliterative literary curio of four chapters, which is “ confessedly a difficult work as much so as Persius is in Latin and Pindar in Greek ”, and which is a superb example of the ingenuity displayed “ in the manipulation of varied forms of alliteration and elaborate tricks of style ”, was for a long time considered to be the work of that prince of Sanskrit poets, Kālidāsa, not because that there were any colophonian clues in the poem itself that could countenance such an attribution, but that the uncritical pandits of the orthodox set had opined that Kālidāsa alone could have been capable of the difficult feats of verbal gymnastics exhibited in every line of the kāvya, and had, as a salve to the literary conscience that perceived the incompatibility of such an artificial poem as the Nalōdaya emanating from the same hand as wrote the Raghuvaṃśa and the Śākuntala, invented the story that the poet was goaded on to its composition by the mischievous scepticism expressed by his friends as to his alliterative capacity. But since the discovery by Professor Peterson of a manuscript of the Nalōdaya whose commentator, Rāmarṣi (c. A.D. 1600), had attributed the work to one Ravidēva, scholars have been entertaining the view that this kāvya was the production of a certain Ravidēva, about whom no other biographical details were, however, available. I shall here examine the question of the real authorship of the poem in the light of the information furnished by another commentary on the same work, which is available in manuscript in the Palace Library of H.H. the Maharaja of Travancore.
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References
page 263 note 1 
(JBAS., Extra Number, 1887, p. 337).
page 264 note 1 The Editor of this work locates both the poet and his royal patron in Kashmir on the strength of the fact that manuscripts of the work are available in Northern India and that Rājānaka Ratnakaṇṭha, a northerner, has commented on it.
page 264 note 2 The Kēralōlpatti, a legendary chronicle of Malabar (c. seventeenth century A.D.), mentions that a Mahābhārata-Bhaṭṭādiri and a Vāsudēva-Bhaṭṭādiri were the contemporaries of Kulaśēkhara-Perumāl, whose death (svargārōhaṇam) it wrongly dates in the fourth century A.D., as expressed by the chronogram puridīsamāśrayaḥ.
page 265 note 1 Can sthiravrata have any implied reference to Driḍhavrata, the name of both the father and son of Kulaśēkhara-Ā
rār, according to Vaishṇava works ?
page 266 note 1 The use of the word rāja-śēkhara suggests some possible connexion with the king's name, the nature of which cannot, however, be guessed. If Rāma was the son and successor of Kulaśēkhara, who was himself the successor of Rājaśēkhara, he may have naturally adopted his grand-father's name.
page 266 note 2 (a) 
(b) 
. —Nīlakaṇṭha's Commentary.
page 267 note 1 
:
page 267 note 2 
page 268 note 1 
page 268 note 2 The Triennial Report of the Madras Oriental Manus. Library (1916–18) states that the author of No. 115 Raghūdaya mentions a Ravidēva as a yaṁaka poet.
page 269 note 1 (a) Printed in the Kāvyamālā Series, pt. i.
(b) Dr. S. Krishnasvami Ayyangar, M.A., has adopted another reading, namely 
(p. 35 of Early History of Vaishṇavism), and has stated that the Kēraḷa king had two friends “ Dvijanmavara (best among brahmans) and Padmaśara (one whose arrow was the lotus, a name of the Indian god of Love, Kāma) ”.
(c) The Bṛihat-stōtra-muktāhāra (Poona Edition) has:—
page 269 note 2 This manuscript was discovered by Mr. S. Paramesvara Ayyar, M.A., B.L., M.R.A.S., of Trivandrum ; vide his Malayalam article in the Bhāshā-pōshiṇī for 1917.
page 270 note 1 A vāriyan is an anulōma-ja, the son of a Śūdra woman and a Nambūdiri brahman.
Manu-smṛti, ix–178.
page 270 note 2 Tamil Studies, p. 310, and History of Srivaishṇavas, p. 22. Tami -varalār̤a also approximately fixes this date for Kulaśēkhara.
The following colophon is found in a commentary of the Mēgha-dūta (Triv. Pal. Liby.) :—
and, if this Paramēśvara was the same as the Bhārata-guru, the preceptor of Vāsudēva (
:), the date of the latter may well have been the second half of the ninth century A.D.
page 270 note 3 Pillai's, GovīndaHistory of Malayalam Literature, p. 14, and Trav. State Manual, iii, 427Google Scholar.
page 271 note 1 
Bhramara-sandēśa.
The following from Gajēndra-mōksha may also be noted :—
page 271 note 1 Published in pt. x of the Kāvyamālā.
page 272 note 1 Catalogus Catalogorum, vol. i, p. 567 (Oppert, No. 1609)Google Scholar.
page 272 note 2 Was a contemporary of Śaṅkara (A.D. 788–820)—Trav. Archl. Series, vol. ii, p. 12. Can he not be identified with Chēramā
-Perumāḷ-Nāyaār, the contemporary of Sundaramūrtti-Nāyaār ?
page 272 note 3 This ā vār has been generally assigned to the first half of the ninth century. The Kēralolpatti gives him a reign of eighteen years (Trav. State Manual, vol. i, p. 223).
page 272 note 4 Sthāṇu-Ravi was a contemporary of the Chōḷa king Āditya I (A.D. 880–907)—SII., vol. iii, p. 221.
page 272 note 5 Vijayarāgadēva's daughter, Princess Nīli, figures in a record of Parāntaka I dated in A.D. 935, and he was himself the Kōyiladhikāri or heir-apparent in the time of the Kōṭṭayam plates of his predecessor Sthāṇu-Ravi in about A.D. 870–80.
page 272 note 6 Trav. Archl. Series, vol. iii, p. 162.
page 272 note 7 Ibid., vol. ii, p. 32.
page 273 note 1 Ibid., vol. ii, p. 80.
page 273 note 2 Tirukkaḍittānam record of Ravi-Rāma.
page 273 note 3 Quilon record of Kulaśēkhara-Chakravarti (TAS., vol. v, p. 44) and Tiruvālūr inscription of Kulaśēkhara-Perumāl (TAS., vol. iv, p. 144).