Prakritadhyaya

SR No.: 001368
Original Sutra Author: Kramdishwar
Author: Satyaranjan Banerjee, Dalsukh Malvania, H C Bhayani
Publisher: Prakrit Text Society Ahmedabad
Publication Year: 1980
Total Pages: 140
Language: Sanskrit, Prakrut, English
Classification: Book_Devnagari & Grammar
File Size: 6 MB

Page 36

INTRODUOTION
personal history of this grammarian Kramadīśvara are shrouded in obscurity; and as time rolls op it has succeeded in keeping some traditions, most of them, no doubt of an apocryphal origin. These traditions, overlaid with clouds of myth and legend, (for which it is very difficult to believe and accept them) lead us to admit one thing regarding the origin of Kramadīśvara's grammar and his school, for which some scholars believe that Kramadīśvara, Jumaranandi and Goyīcandra were almost contemporaries with an interval of less than hundred years between them. However, the anecdote about the composition of his grammar may be given below.
$ 33. Kramadīśvara became an orphan even from his very childbood; and so there was none to look after him. Once upon a time, when he sat down near a stream with his cowherd comates who were playing there, a teacher, while travelling, had come there and asked the boys about the direction of his destination. Some of the boys pointed to him the direction where he found a stream which he would have to cross in order to reach his goal. As there was no conveyance to take him across, he asked the boys about the depth of the river where he would find shallow water, if he wanted to ford it. The cowherds could not give any reply to it, but the child Kramadiśvara, without the least. hesitation, gave & fitting reply, "Sir, you can go safely on foot by this way where the current of the stream is too strong" (and therefore sballow). The teacher did accordingly. After crossing the stream he: thought that even at that tender age the child know the intricacy of this phenomenon. Surely, he must be an intelligent boy. The teacher could not check himself and so he returned to that. bank. He asked the boy two more questions in order to test bis intelligence. Upon enquiry, he came to know that the name of the boy was Kramadīśvara, a Brahmin by caste. Knowing fully well that the boy would be a great davant (Pandita) in future, he took him home and began to teach him Grammar, Philosophy, Logio, Literature and allied subjects. In due course he had become an adept in grammar; and therefore, he wished that he would compose & Sanskrit Grammar. Without informing anybody, even his teacher, he began to write a Sanskrit grammar very
1) Op. Gurunātha Vidyānidhi, Ibid, Preface, p, 3 f.