Tilakmanjarisara

SR No.: 002611
Original Sutra Author: Pallipal Dhanpal
Author: N M Kansara
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad
Publication Year: 1969
Total Pages: 146
Language: Sanskrit, English
Classification: Book_Devnagari & Literature
File Size: 7 MB

Page 10

INTRODUCTION
I
The Tilakamañjari of Kavi Dhanapāla
The Tilakamañjari (TM) of Kavi Dhanapāla is a Sanskrit prose-romance depicting a love-affair on the one hand of prince Harivāhana with a celestial princess Tilakamañjari, and, on the other haud, that of another prince Samaraketu with a semi-celestial princess Malayasundari.
The scenes of this romance shift now from Ayodhyā to Kāñci on the earth, and again from the the Ratnakūta Island in the southern Indian ocean to the Ekaśțnga peak of the Vaitādhya range in the north India in the celestial sphere, practically covering the whole of the traditional Greater India right from the Himalayas to Ceylon and from Maldives to the Indonesian islands.
The story commences with an account of king Meghavāhana at Ayodhya, where, with his queen Madirāvati, he suffers from want of a male child. Having obtained a divine mystic formula from a Vidyādhara Muni, he worships the goddess Sri, who bestows upon him the cherished boon of a son, who is named 'Harivāhana' by his father. On seeing a portrait of Tilakamañjarī, the prince instantly falls in love with her, and is eventually carried to the celestial city Rathanūpuracakravāla, by a Vidyādhara in the guise of a mad elephant. There he successfully undertakes a mystic penance and attain's superhuman powers which consequently sublimate his human personality so as to qualify him for the life-partership of the celestial beloved princess Tilakamañjari, who is but the same Priyangusundari whose celestial beloved husband Jvalanaprabba he himself was in their previous birth.
The above story is interfused with a sub-story concerned with Samaraketu, a son of Candraketu, the ruler of the Simhala country. The prince, deputed as he is by his father to command a naval expedition against the restive feudatories, comes across a strange island Ratnakūta, where he happens to see Malayasundari, with whom he falls in love at first sight. But strangely enough the princess suddenly disappears after having thrown a garland in his neck. The disappointed prince tries to drown himself into the occan, but is mysteriously saved by some divine agency. Taking his cue from the suggestive partiog remarks of the beloved, he goes to Kāñci at the head of a rescue force meant to assist king Kusumasekhara and chacely happens to save the king's love-lorn