Note 24 — X MURĀRI, RĀJAÇEKHARA, THEIR PREDECESSORS AND SUCCESSORS

Murāri declares in the prologue to the solitary drama, the Anargharāghava24 which has come down to us, though quotations show that he wrote other works, that his aim is to please a public tired of terror, horror, violence, and marvels, by a composition elevated, heroic, and marvellous throughout, not merely at the close. He defends his choice of the banal subject of Rāma; his character adds elevation and charm to the poet’s work, and it would be folly to lay aside so splendid a theme. The Anargharāghava, however, does little to justify the poet’s confidence in his choice of topic. The theme, treated already at length by Bhavabhūti, offered no chance of success save for a great poet, and Murāri was not such a poet save in the estimate of occasional later writers who extol his depth (gambhīratā) without any shadow of justification.