Note 37 — VII CANDRA, HARṢA, AND MAHENDRAVIKRAMAVARMAN

The author undoubtedly shows a considerable knowledge of the tenets of the Buddhists, and the play is not unamusing, though the subject is much too trivial for the pains taken to deal with it. The style is certainly appropriate to the subject-matter; it is like that of Harṣa, simple and elegant, while many of the verses are not without force and beauty. In the prose speeches of the Kapālin, however, we have occasional premonitions37 of the unwieldy compounds of Bhavabhūti. There is, as in all the later Prahasanas, a certain incongruity between the triviality of the subject-matter and the elaboration of the form but the king has the merit of avoiding the gross vulgarity which marks normally the later works of this type.