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GENERAL EDITOR'S FOREWORD
1. Svayambhūdeva : Date, Life, Literary Works?
The Apabhramsa Epic : The Sandhibandha There were several types of the longer narrative poems in Apabhraíša (Ap.). Like the Sanskrit art-epic made up of several cantos oalled sarga and the Prakrit epic made up of a number of āśvāskakas the chief type of Ap. epic had sections called sandhi. The Sandhibandha was an elaborate structure, using a rich variety of metres for its different structural parts. The epic poems in this form adopted the descriptive and rhetorical style of the Sanskrit and Prakrit Mahākāvyas, but regarding the themes the range was very wide. Rāmāyaṇa, Mahābbārata aud the Harivamśa, any major Upākhyāna or episode from these, mythological and legendary biographies of great men like the Jain Tirthañkaras and Universal Monarchs, aggregates of tales illustrating a group of religiousmoral topics (kathākośa )--such were the subjects of these epics. The epics extended over many thousand verses. They were in a way Purāṇas composed in the Kavya style, and hence can be well-described as Purāņic art-epics.
Puranic Epics
Caturmukha is the earliest known epic poet of Ap. He has been acknowledged as his model by Svayambhū, who held him in high esteem. In fact several later writers have referred to Caturmukha, Svayambhū and Puşpadanta as the three topmost Ap. poets. Caturmukha had at least three epics to his credit : One narrating the Rāmāyaṇa story, another, the Mahābhārata story and the third, the Purāņic legend of the churning of the ocean by gods and demons. The last work was probably called Addhimahna (Sk. abdhimathana ), as we understand from Bhoja's Sțngäraprakāśa. Most probably Caturmukha was a Brāhmaṇa and his poems had the author's name mentioned in the last verse of all their sections.
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