Setubandha

SR No.: 001384
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Krishnakant Handiqui
Publisher: Prakrit Text Society Ahmedabad
Publication Year: 1976
Total Pages: 812
Language: English, Sanskrit
Classification: Book_English & Literature
File Size: 14 MB

Page 76

INTRODUCTION
63 half of them occurs in connection with the Suvela range and the battle scenes described in Cantos 9 and 13 respectively. Apart from this, there are some sixty compounds, each of which constitutes the entire half of a verse; and nearly one hundred twentyfour others shorter only by a word or two, besides a large number of compounds of medium length. Such methodical use of long compounds is not usual in the Sanskrit Mahakavyast. This seems, however, to be a characteristic of some of the longer poems of Prakrit literature. Even a popular work like the Gātbāsaptaśati contains more than fifteen verses?, in which one half of each verse, usually the first, consists of a single compound. In any case Pravarasena is one of the earliest writers to have made such an extensive use of this stylistic device. Among later Prakrit poets Vākpati freely uses single compounds constituting the entire half of a vers, but he has only a few verses (e. g. 202-206) which show this characteristic in both the halves The other outstanding poetical works of the eighth century or thereabouts, Koūhala's Lilavai, Haribhadra's Šamaraiccakaha and Uddyotana's Kuvalayamala (the latter two in the verse portions) follow, on the whole, the same pattern as the Setubandha in the use of long and elaborate compounds. In Lilavat, for instance, the concatenations of compounds are mostly arranged in groups of three, and sometimes four, or even six verses'.
A considerable number of verses is quoted from the
1 Kalidasa avoids long compounds, Bhăravi has really long compounds only in a few
verses (e. g., 12. 41,45; 13. 18; 18.4). Māgha uses them frequently, and has besides more than sixty compounds which constitute or nearly constitute the half of a verse ; but he seems to have only one verse (7.34) in which both the halves con
sist of single compounds. 2 1.62; 2.2,46,48,70; 3.44; 4.34 etc. NS ed. 3 vv. 287-290, 353-355, 594-596, 741-743, 1026-1031 etc,