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 11

daughter from an attempt at suicide. The latter turns out to be none else but his same beloved Malayasundari. But due to the military pressure, which is likely to compel her father to offer ber in marriage to Vajräyudha the commander of the inimical forces of Ayodhyā, she is sent a way to a distant hermitage of a Muni, Sāntātapa. There again she tries to commit suicide but is mysteriously saved by some superhuman agency, : which carties her to the Ekaśțnga peak, where she leads the life of an ascetic girl, while waiting for ber lover. Prince Samaraketu, on the other hand, laurches a surprise night attack on the forces of Ayodhyā, but, thanks to the magic power of a divine ring gifted by goddess Sri to king Meghavāhana, the whole of the attacking army is benumbed and the price is arrested. Attracted on hearing about the strange prowess of the king, Samaráketu comes to Ayodhyā, where he is appointed as the principal companion of prince Harivāhana. When the prince is kidnapped by the mad elephant, Samaraketu sets out in his search and after a long and hazardous journey through a thick forest he arrives at the Ekaśnga region of the Vidyadharas, where he is united with his friend. But when Samaraketu was on his way to the Ekaśộnga, Harivāhanā, in his turn, had also set out in search of the former, and this merry-go-round of mutual search entangles all four lovers into the clutches of the pangs of separation due to which each one of them tries to commit suicide more than once. Ultimately an omniscient sage reveals their mutual relations in the previous birth, during which Malayasundari was the same beloved Priyamvadā of the god Sumāli who now born as Samaraketu. All are happily united at the end.
The above is but a very meagre and quite inadequate character-based partial sketch of an elaborate story of the original prose romance that
many as fifty-two male and twenty-six female characters and strangely beautiful motifs of a divine necklace, a celestial ring, a cursed parrot, a gacked fortress, a naval expedition, an omniscient sage and what not.
The original in prose is tastefully interspersed with occasional verses, about one hundred in all, in not less than sixteen different metres, some of them being the Prakrit ones.
Dhanapala, thus, carries further the torch of the Sanskrit proseromance, enkindled by Subandhu and Dandin, and profusely nurtured by Bána. He has proved himself a worthy successor of the last one and has sought to develop a new form for his romantic tale by striking a balance between the stylistic extremities of both of the prose as well as the verse, thóðgh at the same time properly maintaining the scholarly tenor of the then prevalent literary standards.