There seems little doubt that the author used the Ratnāvalī, which gives the upper limit of his date. His father's name is given at Narendravardhana.
Māyurājā[1] has been less fortunate in that his Udāttarāghava is known only by reference. Rājaçekhara represents him as a Karaculi or Kulicuri, which suggests the possibility that he was a king of the Kalacuri dynasty, of which unhappily we know little during the period in which he is probably to be set. He seems to have known Bhavabhūti. Like him he eliminated treachery from the slaying of Vālin by Rāma, and he represents Lakṣmaṇa as first to follow the magic gazelle, and Rāma as going later in pursuit. He is cited more than once in Dhanika's commentary on the Daçarūpa.
No other dramatist of this period is known with any certainty; the Pārvatīpariṇaya once ascribed to Bāṇa is now allotted to Vāmana Bhaṭṭa Bāṇa (c. A.D. 1400), and the Mallikāmāruta, wrongly thought to be Daṇḍin's, is the work of one Uddaṇḍin of the seventeenth century.
Of these dramatists Yaçovarman has had the honour of being considered worthy of quotation by the writers on theory who have preserved for us some interesting verses:[2]
ākrandāḥ stanitair vilocanajalāny açrāntadhārāmbhubhis
tvadvicchedabhuvaç ca çokaçikhinas tulyās taḍidvibhramaiḥ
antar me dayitāmukhaṁ tava çaçī vṛttiḥ samāpy āvayoḥ
tat kim mām aniçaṁ sakhe jaladhara dagdhum evodyataḥ.
'My moans are like thy thunder, the floods of my tears thy ever-streaming showers, the flame of my sorrow at severance from my beloved thy flickering lightning, in my mind is her face reflected, in thee the moon; like is our condition; why then, O friend, O cloud, dost thou ever seek to consume me with the burning pangs of love?'
This is decidedly pretty, and there is elegance and beauty in another verse:[3]
yat tvannetrasamānakānti salile magnaṁ tad indīvaram
meghair antaritaḥ priye tava mukhacchāyānukāraḥ çaçī
ye 'pi tvadgamanānukāragatayas te rājahaṅsā gatās
tvatsādṛçyavinodamātram api me daivena na kṣamyate.
