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.

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.

[1] The Harṣacharita, written in ornate poetic prose,[2] narrates the biography of the emperor Harsha in eight ucchvāsas (chapters).

[citation needed] The work was translated into English by Edward Byles Cowell and Frederick William Thomas in 1897.

[5] The military historian Kaushik Roy describes Harshacharita as "historical fiction" but with a factually correct foundation.