Yasastilaka and Indian Culture

SR No.: 001609
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Krishnakant Handiqui
Publisher: Jain Sanskruti Samrakshak Sangh Solapur
Publication Year: 1968
Total Pages: 566
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Story, Literature, & Culture
File Size: 16 MB

Page 138

5. YAŠASTILAKA AS A SOCIO-POLITICAL RECORD
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and setting up therein Jaina statues and shrines. The references in Yasastilaka would lead one to suppose that the melting down of images to meet financial needs was not unknown in the Deccan in the tenth century, and Somadeva's statements may be taken as a kind of protest against the practice being resorted to by provincial governors. It may be mentioned in this connection that, elsewhere, during the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus (1081-1118 1. D.), Leo, Bishop of Chalcedon, came
protesting against the melting down of icons for purposes of filling the imperial treasury'.:
The spy in his report describes Yasodhara's minister as a monster of financial corruption (lañcā-luñcā-nisācaraḥ 3. 185). Lancā or lañca is bribery, while luñod is extortion; and the phrase is used in the sense of financial corruption in general. Somadeva deals with the subject in his Nitivákyāmrta and describes lañcaluñcă as the source of Financial malpractice represents the seamy side of government, and Somadeva exhorts the king not to allow persons wbo come on business to become the victims of rapacious officials.
Glimpses of economic prosperity are occasionally afforded by our work. The description of a prosperous dairy-farm of Karahāța occurring in Book V has been translated in the previous chapter. More interesting is the description of the mart owned and run by the trusted priest the story recounted in Yasastilaka, Book VII, section 27. We are told that
1 See Dalal's Introduction to the play in G. O. S. 2 Classical antiquity provides instances of rapacious princes laying sacrilogious hands on costly images. Clement of Alexandria (second century A. D.) reports in his
shortation to the Greeks (Chap. IV) that the tyrant Dionysius the younger stripped the statue of Zeus in Sicily of its golden cloak and ordered it to be clothed with 4 woolen one; while Antiochus of Cyzicus, a Greek city of Asia Minor, when he was in want of money, ordered the golden statue of Zeus, fifteen oubits high, to be melted down, and a similar statue of cheaper material covered with gold leaf to be set up in ito place.
Hussey: Church and Learning in the Byzantine Empire, p. 94. 4 Lañca, bribe', is used in Pali, being peculiar to the Jätaka literature. See Rhys
Davids: Pali-English Dictionary. Cf, Pali lañcakhādaka, bribe-eater. The Bengali expression ghuskhor means the same thing. Compare also lúca khane in Marathi and
lañca tinnu in Kannada. 5 'preffa gert a hazai ta l'; ' a TFTHATTHCTTI; 19:
Th afa alifan' etc. Srutasāgaro in his comm. on Yaśastilaka 3. 185 explains 399 : as ent( ?)
: The anonymous comm. on Nitiväkyämrta says yur i 334 (3 ) 3a: a orar: va va T TAT: Farther on it says लच्छेन मलाकारग्रहणेन, also लञ्चन कार्यकरणे बलात्कारेण हरणे. There is some confusion of meaning, but the expression as a whole signifies extortion or unlawful exactions by the king or his officials. Somadeva remarks in Nitivākydmrla (op. cit.): राहो लश्न कार्यकरणे कस्य नाम कल्याणम्