Vajjalaggam

SR No.: 001383
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jayvallabh
Publisher: Prakrit Text Society Ahmedabad
Publication Year: 1969
Total Pages: 708
Language: Prakrit, Sanskrit, English
Classification: Book_Devnagari & Literature
File Size: 13 MB

Page 49

xlviii
VAJJÁLAGGAM
(xi) The Literary Form and Merit of the Vajjalagga :
Although the VL is a collection of stanzas arranged under different sections, each of the stanzas is an independent entity complete in itself, presenting forcefully and with epigrammatic terseness, within four short lines, a complete idea or situation in its most salient details, independently of the preceding or following stanzas. Such stanzas are called muktakas (isolates) in Sanskrit. Hāla's Gāthāsaptušati is also a collection of such isolates, not however topically grouped under different sections. . All the stanzas in the VL are without exception gathās i.e. quatrains composed in the Aryā metre, with 12, 18, 12 and 15. (sometimes 18) mitrās in the four quarters respectively. Arya (also called gātha ) is the special metre used in all Prākrit lyrical poetry and it appears to have primarily belonged to Prākrit poetry and to have been borrowed later on by Sanskrit (Jacobi, ZDMG Vol. 40, 1886, p. 336 ff.)
The introductory stanzas of the VL (1-31 ) give us an idea about the author's views on the nature, composition, recitation and appreciation of poetry. Prākrit poetry literature ( out of which the VL has been derived) is according to the author, essentially secular and predominantly erotic' (FT TTC, st. 29 ),
1. The commentator Ratnadeva says in his introductory remarks on st. 1, that the masses are erotic-minded (75froj 7779sta?), and hence the compiler, though well-versed in Sanskrit, prepared the present anthology of Prākrit stanzas. The remark of the commentator lends support to the view that (secular)
krit poetry was predominantly erotic. Govardhana (12th century A.D.), author of the Āryāsaptaśa ti in Sanskrit. also savs in st. 52, that he has carried over "bv force (ada) into Sanskrit the (erotic) muse, which till then had found its expression only in Prākrit'':
वाणो प्राकृतसमुचितरसा बलेनैव संस्कृतं नीता।
निम्नानुरूपनीरा कलिन्दकन्येव गगनतलम् ।। It must, however, not be forgotten that we have in Sanskrit. two important erotic poems, viz. the Srmgāraśa taka of Bhartphari and the Amaru-sataka of the poet Amaru, both of them considerably earlier than Govardhana.