Harshacharita
biography of Indian emperor Harsha by Banabhatta
The Harshacharita (Sanskrit: हर्षचरित, Harṣacarita; English: The deeds of Harsha) is the biography of Indian emperor Harsha by Banabhatta, also known as Bana, who was a Sanskrit writer of seventh-century CE India. He was the 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.
Contents
The Harṣacharita, written in ornate poetic prose, narrates the biography of the emperor Harsha in eight ucchvāsas (chapters). In the first two ucchvāsas, 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, chatrang (Persian chess), xiangqi (Chinese chess), janggi (Korean chess), shogi (Japanese), sittuyin (Burmese chess), makruk (Thai chess) and modern Indian chess) comes from Harshacharitha:
Under this monarch [...], only the bees quarrelled to collect the dew; the only feet cut off were those of measurements, and only from Ashtâpada one could learn how to draw up a chaturanga, there was no cutting-off of the four limbs of condemned criminals...
“Harshacharita” enters the record as biography of Indian emperor Harsha by Banabhatta. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Harshacharita, biography and Indian can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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