The Birth-place of Bhavabhuti
Summary
Addressing a long‑standing controversy, this paper uses textual, geographical and archaeological evidence to locate the birthplace of the Sanskrit dramatist Bhavabhūti. Bhavabhūti himself states that he belonged to a Brahmin family of the Kaśyapa gotra and Taittirīya tradition, surnamed Udumbara, living at Padmapura in the Dakṣiṇāpatha (south). Scholars have variously identified Padmapura with places in Malwa, Bengal, Mysore and Vidarbha. The author argues that Dakṣiṇāpatha denotes the region south of the Narmada and that references in Bhavabhūti’s plays to the Narmada and Vindhya ranges support a Vidarbha location. He notes that ruins near the modern village of Padmapur in the Bhandara district of the Central Provinces correspond to an ancient town and that no other candidate site in the region possesses such remains. Concluding that this Padmapur was Bhavabhūti’s ancestral home and birthplace, the author calls for systematic archaeological investigation of the site.
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Conclusion
The study concludes that Padmapur near Amgaon in the Bhandara district (Vidarbha) is the most plausible birthplace of Bhavabhūti. This identification reconciles textual clues with geography and archaeological remains and warrants further exploration by the Archaeological Department.