Mahapurana Part 1

SR No.: 002722
Original Sutra Author: Pushpadant
Author: P L Vaidya
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith
Publication Year: 1979
Total Pages: 560
Language: Hindi, Apbhramsa
Classification: Book_Devnagari & Mythology
File Size: 11 MB

Page 25

INTRODUCTION
tion of the date, 1080 of the Vikrama era, i. e., 1023 A. D. and of the reign of King Bhoja in our Ms., we must regard that reference to a subsequent copy of the work, perhaps by Prabhácandra himself. Our Ms. of the Tippana again does not contain the stanza ataTYTTHEITEIT etc. Prabhacandra might have added this stanza in a subsequent copy of his work at a later date, which assumption may also explain the reference to king Jaya simhadeva.
The critical apparatus described above divides the Mss. into two groups, one comprising G and K, and the other M, B and P, not only because of the general agreement of the variants noted, nor on account of additions or omissions to the original text in a particular group ( see page 514 ), but also on the strength of the agreement of the Praśasti stan zas found at the beginning of several samdhis. I have already alluded to this topic in my Introduction to Jasa haracariu (page 21 ), but I think it is necessary to discuss it in detail as it throws considerable light on the Ms. tradition of the works of Puşpadanta and also the principle on which I have grouped the Mss. and valued them.
THE PRAŠASTI STANZAS OF THE MAHĀ PURANAI When I had an occasion to study the manuscript material for my edition of Jasa haracariu, I discovered that certain Mss. contained, at the commencement of a samdhi, stanzas in praise of the poet's patron, Nanna, while others did not record them. In the course of the collation of Mss. I also discovered the fact that those Mss. which contained these praśasti stan zas agreed very closely in one set of variants, while those Mss, which did not contain these stanzas agreed very closely in equally another set of variants. On further examination I found that those Mss. which did not give the praśasti stanzas presented an older recension of the text, while those that contained these stanzas presented a later and amplified recension. In the case of the Jasaharacariu the amplified passages were located and their author and his date found out. As that interpolator, who lived four centuries after the poet, had nothing to do with the poet's patron, I was convinced that the poet himself must have composed these praśasti stanzas, and was forced to advance a hypothesis that the poet himself, with the help he obtained from his patron, must have got made two or three sets of copies of his work, in one of which he wrote, at leisure, at first in the margin perhaps, some stray stanzas glorifying his patron, while other set or sets had already gone out of his hand without the addition of these stanzas. This hypothesis, briefly enunciated on
1. Some of the Prasasti stanzas are put together by Pandit Nathuram Premi in his article
on Puspadanta in Jain Sahitya Samsodhaka, Vol. II, No. I. 1929.