Paumchariu Part 1

SR No.: 002523
Original Sutra Author: Swayambhudev
Author: H C Bhayani
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown
Publication Year: 1953
Total Pages: 458
Language: Sanskrit, English
Classification: Book_Devnagari & Literature
File Size: 11 MB

Page 53

12
PAUMACARIU
Kuntā are significantly compared to the seven mouths of the Godavari.
Samcallai satta-i puravaraho
Goyāvari-muhaim va sāyaraho. RC. 21 18 5. "All the seven started towards the best of the cities, like the seven mouths of the Godavari going towards the ocean." This simile cannot easily strike one who is not a South
erner, (2) At PC. 78 4 6 the months of the year are referred
to as Phagguna-avasāna caitta-pamuha. 'Beginning with Caitra and ending with Phālguna'. This suggests a region where the Caitrādi year was cur
Lennivalged Regionion of
(3) Yāpaniya Samgha, the Jain schism to which Svayam
bhū belonged flourished in the South and especially in
the Karņāțaka region. (4) The graphic description of the Godavari and the Nar
madā in Svayambhū's epics bear an unmistakable stamp
of the first-hand observation. But then how to account for the adoption of Ap. as a literary medium in the Kannada-speaking area? "It appears that Svayambhū might be only an immigrant into Karnataka from some northern region like Berar. From the history of the Rāştrakūtas, we gather that from the seventh century onwards there was a close political and cultural intercourse between Berar and Karnāțaka. The main line of the Rastrakūtas ruled at Manyakheta, modern Mālkhed in Hyderabad. But the ancestors of Dantidurga, the first Rāştrakūta king of note were ruling somewhere in Berar and are supposed to be connected with the Rāştrakūta king Nannarāja Yudhasura, who was ruling at Elichpur in Berar in the middie of the 7th Century A.D. But Altekar thinks, 'Dantidurga and his ancestors were not natives of Berar. Canarese was their mothertongue'. Hence he conjectures that 'there may, quite possibly, have been a Rathi family holding local sway at Lătur (=Lattalúra) in Bidar District of Hyderabad State. This family may have later migrated to Elichpur or some other place nearby in Berar, where Nannarāja was ruling in 631-632 A.D.".
This clearly shows close political relations between Berar and the Kannada territory continuing for centuries.
Similarly close cultural ties between the two regions can be surmised from what we know about Puşpadanta, another great Apabhramśa poet. Puşpadanta composed his Apabhrarśa Purāņa at Manyakheta under the patronage of the Râştrakūța minister Bharata in 959-965. It is very likely that Svayambhu's case also was analogous. He and his patrons, though residing in a Kannada-speaking region might have originally hailed from Berar. Only some such assumption can explain the apparent incongruity of a western literary dialect being employed by persons residing in Southern India where Dravidian tongues were current.
We know it full well that apart from possessing inborn talent (pratibhā) the poet in ancient India was required to study hard (vyutpatti) and undergo a rigorous course of training (amanda
(1) Altekar, 1934, 11. (2) Ibid., 11, 23.