Madanrekha Akhyayika

SR No.: 002639
Original Sutra Author: Jinbhadrasuri
Author: Bechardas Doshi
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad
Publication Year: 1973
Total Pages: 304
Language: Sanskrit, Hindi
Classification: Book_Devnagari & Literature
File Size: 15 MB

Page 51

form gave up all pretence of being a prose-work with occassional verses and became one in which prose and verse balanced in their proportions.84 Dr. C. Kunhan Raja has observed that the admixture of prose and metrical passages in more or less equal proportion became a special pattern of literary art in Sanskrit known as the Campū, but much need not be said about this pattern since this is only a combination in the same type of the features of the Maha Kāvyas (Grand Epics) like the sišupālavadha of Magha or the Naişadhiyacarita of Śni Hassa and the features of Gadya (Prose) form in poetry like the Kādambari of Bāna and the Vasavadatta of Subandhu,85 Interestingly enough, both Hemacandra and Vāgbhatta unanimously cite the Vasavadatta and the Damayanti-kathā as illustrations of Campū; and we know for certain that the Vasavaddattā is rather a 'Kathā' than a 'Campū', while the Damayanti-katba is 'Campu' rather than a 'Katha'. Shri Dolarray R. Mankad38 has rightly said that the 'Campū' form is related on the one side with drama (rūpaka) and on the other side with Katbā' and 'Akhyayikā', since while on the one hand it resembles drama as a mixed genre utilizing both prose and verse, on the other hand it resembles 'Kathā' and 'Ākhyāyikā' as a romance utilizing the story and descriptions narrated in prose and verse abounding in long compounds. But while there is action and suspense in both a drama and a Katha; they are conspicuous by their absense in a Campū. On the contrary both Akhyāyikā and Campū resemble in their narrative style and a simple plot running in a straight chronological order.
It, thus, seems that the fact of a subject-matter being either invented or historical no longer served to distinguish a Katba, Ākhyāyiika and Campū from one another, since the very same story could be treated in any one of the literary patterns. And in view of the fact that Madanarekbā, the central figure of the MRA, has been regarded as a historical personage, it is possible that Jinabhadrasūri might have been prompted to call his work an Akhyāyika, thus claiming for hiinself the credit of having composed a literary piece which, being a mythologico-historical biography, was both an Akhyāyikā and a Campū simultaneously or a content of an Ākhyāyikā in a Campū form.
VIII : Socio-Cultural Data :
As the story of the MRA centres round but one vital event in the life of the central character, the scope for a variety of concrete incidents and their description has become limited. The major portion of the plot
34. NHSL, p. 397. 53. SSL, pp. 216-217. 36. Nvd., pp. 117 ff.