Harshacharita

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...

Commentaries

The only commentary available is the Sanketa written by Shankara, a scholar from Kashmir. It seems that Ruyyaka also wrote a commentary known as the Harsacaritavartika, which has not yet been found.

The work was translated into English by Edward Byles Cowell and Frederick William Thomas in 1897. The military historian Kaushik Roy describes Harshacharita as "historical fiction" but with a factually correct foundation.

This work was translated into Telugu prose by M. V. Ramanachari (Medepalli Venkata Ramanacharyulu) of Maharajah's College, Vizianagaram in 1929.