Kumarpal Pratibodh

SR No.: 001873
Original Sutra Author: Somprabhacharya
Author: Jinvijay
Publisher: Central Library
Publication Year: 1920
Total Pages: 564
Language: Prakrit
Classification: Book_Devnagari, Story, & Literature
File Size: 11 MB

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decline from almost the beginning of the 14th century A. D.; and palm-leaf was rapidly giving place to paper as a material of writing. At that time all the palm-leaf works in the vast Ms.-collections located in Patan, Cambay, Jesalmere and other places noted for such collections were being rapidly and simultaneously copied ou paper. The oldest paper Mss, available at present all belong to this period. Similarly the latest palm-leaf Mss. to be found at present were written in that period and none written after that time is now available. This indicates that paper must have been introduced in these regions at that very time. At the time when the present manuscript was written, the practice of writing on palm-leaf was getting scarce and the scribes were on the verge of forgetting the art of writing on palni-leaf and also the art of preparing the special ink required for such writing. The caligraphy seen on this palm-leaf MS. is of a very inferior kind as compared to that seen on old palm-leaf MSS. The script of the present MS. is not so beautiful as that of the MSS. of the 12th and the 13th centuries, nor is the ink so excellent. The ink used for the present MS. is very thin and has are now disappeard from several places and lines after lines on several pages have become so obliterated as to make their deciphering all the more difficult. Compared to this the ink used on the palm-leaf MSS. of two to three hundred years before this period appears still to be brilliant and deep black, Nor is the purity of
nage, to be observed in the old palm-leaf MSS., preserved in this MS. The reason of this is that the scribes of old times were men possessing a general knowledge of Sanskrit and Prakrit languages; and even good many learned men of those times used to write their works themselves. Hence, as a rule, very few mistakes are to be seen in MSS. of those times. But at the time when the present MS. was written, the process of copying palm-leaf MSS. on paper having been coninienced on a very large scale, there was not to be found a sufficiently large number of scribes, possessing good literary qualifications, able to cope with this work; hence only scribes of mediocre abilities who could merely do the mechanical work of transcribing letters, were available for copying purposes. On this account these scribes committed good many mistakes in transcribing copies from old MSS.; and it is on this very account that quite a large number of mistakes have crept in the present MS.of" Kumarapala-Pratibodha''. An idea of the literary qualifications of the Kayastha scribe, named Sheta, of this present manuscript can be got from the language of the colophon written by him giving the (Samvat) date, etc. of the MS.
Another MS. of the Text.--Besides the above mentioned MS., another palm-leaf MS. belonging to the Bhandar of Sanghavi's Pádá in Patan, was also availed of in preparing the text of this work. This palm-leaf Ms. was older than the one mentioued before and was written in a more correct manner; but it was unfortunately very incomplete and broken. It contained