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 476

18. QUOTATIONS AND REYRRENCES
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Rajaputra, Gautama and other sages. The committee of experts appointed to examine and select an elephant for Yasodhara's coronation is described as having mastered the treatises of these writers. None of their works is now extant, but it is remarkable that so many texts on elephants were available in the tenth century. Some of the names occur in a long list of sages are represented as attending the court of Romapāda, the king of the Angas, in Pālakāpya's Hastyāyurveda (Chap. I), an ancient work of which we have only an imperfect text in the printed edition. These sages are described in Pålakāpya as conversant with the ways of elephants, and we find mentioned among them Gautama, Rājaputra, Băşkali (v. r. Vākvali, Vākpati), Yājniavalkya, Nārada and Mātanga. The latter name might be our Ibhacārin, as the Mātangalila of Nilakantha, which summarizes this portion of Pālakāpya in the first Patala, calls one of the sages Mātangacarin, which is same as Ibhacărin.
The nature of Somadeva's reference leaves no doubt that there were actual treatises on elephants attributed to Gautama, Yājõavalkya and Nārada, but it is not known whether these authors had anything to do with their namesakes in the field of Smrti literature. As regards Rājaputra, he seems to be the same as the Rājaputra whom we know as a writer on politics from citations in the anonymous commentary on Nitivākyāmrta. According to Kane, Rajaputra is cited also in Ballālasena's Adbhutasagara, but Somadeva's reference to him is about two oenturies earlier, and probably the earliest known, if we leave aside the occurrence of the name in Pālakāpya, Among later writers Mallinātha cites Rājaputra's treatise on elephant-lore in his commentary on Raghuvansa 4. 39.
In Book II Somadeva describes the young prince Yasodhara as being proficient in elephant lore like Romapāda, to whom we have already referred. In Pälakāpya's Hastyāyurveda (Chap. I) he is stated to be the king of the Angas, and we see him at his court at Campā, attended by a large number of sages, and worried by the problem of catching wild elephants. Then appears the semi-legendary figure of Pālakāpya, the great authority on the diseases of elephants and their cure; and throughout the rest of the work Romapada is represented as the pupil of the famous teacher. According to the Hastyāyurveda, Palakäpya was the son of a sage named Samagāyana and a female elephant who was no other than a nymph metamorphosed by &
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1 quer 1991 : 1. 67. 2 See verse 5. 3 Op. oit., p. 341. * त्वगभेदाच्छोणितनाबान्मांसस ऋथनादपि । आत्मानं यो न जानाति तस्य गम्भीरवेदिता॥ इति राजपुत्रीये 5 476 TOTES