Laghuprabandhsangrah

SR No.: 001844
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jayant P Thaker
Publisher: Oriental Research Institute Vadodra
Publication Year: 1970
Total Pages: 300
Language: Sanskrit, English
Classification: Book_Devnagari, History, & Story
File Size: 16 MB

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The verse recited by the child before the king occurs in LPS and PPS A versions only, but it definitely offers significance to the king's adopt. ing him as his son. A significant incident causing jātismarana is given by LPS alone. PPS A version is unique in inserting Śrimātā's announcement and sending a man to Arbuda. It also adds that, when mature, she lived in dispair since nobody liked to marry her. Likewise, PPS B version differs from all the rest by stating that the princess herself went to Arbuda cala and threw the monkey-head in the kunda.
(1) PC and VTK state that the Yogin, while passing through the air,
beheld her and, having descended, asked for her hand. According to PPS A version, however, he was practising penance on the same mountain. The other two versions are silent on the point. The PC and VTK versions do not name the Yogin, while PPS A calls him Rasiau tapasvin, PPS B names him as Rasīyāka and LPS gives his name as Rasiyākaḥ bharat kah.
(12) The versions differ in the description of his death also. PC and VTK
say that having enticed him to go to her for marriage ceremony placing aside his trident, Śrim ātā troubled him with dogs produced through miraculous powers and struck him dead with his trident. PPS B version does not refer to the trident at all and states that, being troubled by the dogs, he died of heart-bursting; while PPS A version does not mention even the dogs and simply states that, shocked at the artificial cock-crow, he died of heart-bursting. Our text, on the other hand, cuts short the interesting incident in a senter ce of three words
only viz. Rasiyāko bharațakah stambhitaḥ. (13) PPS A is unique in stating that Srimāta, repenting on the Yogin's
death, (committed suicide) by entering the Vaišvadeva-fire. (14) The VIK version coincides with PC version in most of the details,
strikingly resembling it even in the wordings, to such an extent that orie is tempted to deem it as the version of the PC put into verse.
The above observations lead us to the conclusion that none of these versions preceded the version of our text, which, as in the case of other prabandhas, represents the oldest stratum of the story in view of the language, style and depiction of the story as such. The other versions are enlarged and polished ones, while the PPS B version contains brief jottings from one or more other accounts of the story either read by the author somewhere or heard by him through oral tradition.