Bāṇabhaṭṭa

Bāṇabhaṭṭa (Sanskrit: बाणभट्ट) was a 7th-century Sanskrit prose writer and poet from India. He was the Asthana Kavi in the court of the Emperor Harsha, who reigned c. 606–647 CE in northern India, first from Sthanvishvara, and later Kanyakubja.

Quotes

• When Harsha’s father, the king of Sthānvīshvara, passed away, the people ‘bore him to the river Sarasvatī, and there upon a pyre befitting an emperor solemnly consumed all but his glory in the flames’. In a classic ritual, Harsha ‘passed on to the Sarasvatī’s banks, and having bathed in the river, offered water to his father’.
  • Bāna, Harsa-Carita, tr. E.B. Cowell, F.W. Thomas, London, 1929, pp. 158 & 160, quoted by Darian, Steven, ‘Gangā and Sarasvatī: An Incidence of Mythological Projection’, East and West, vol. 26, nos 1-2, 1976, p. 155. as quoted from Danino, M. (2010). The lost river : on the trail of the Sarasvatī. Penguin Books India.