Kuvalayamala Part 2

SR No.: 002778
Original Sutra Author: Udyotansuri
Author: A N Upadhye
Publisher: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan
Publication Year: 1970
Total Pages: 368
Language: Sanskrit, English
Classification: Book_Devnagari & Literature
File Size: 12 MB

Page 118

INTRODUCTION
The dohaka (47.6) sung by the gramanați is in Apabhramsa, so also the song put in the mouth of the gurjara-pathika (59.5). Then there are a few such verses which go along with the prose passages in Apabhraṁśa (6.9, 11; 31.26 f.). There is some uncertainty in view of the alternative readings whether 2.28 could be taken as in Apabhramsa: one Ms. reads atthau but the other attho.
In some prose passages, Apabhramsa forms intrude here and there, may be that a few of them were current in the spoken idiom of those days. At 23.9 f., the king is addressing the Aśvapati, the chief of the stable; and he uses an Apabhramśa form, the Gen. sing. in -ho. The forms ghari at 79.30 and animittu at 99.19 etc. are stray intruders. Then here and there, some short Apabhramsa sentences like sa puna kaïsiya etc. are followed by Prakrit passages, 7.22, 60.16; etc.
There is a pretty good number of passages which freely use what are looked upon as forms special to Apabhramsa. They are often introduced with a question containing a Prakritic synonym of kidṛśa, such as kerisa, kaisa, etc. in the required form, with or without the k-suffix. These passages (some of them including a verse or so) are usually descriptions: of durjana 5.27 f.; of sajjana 6.15 f.; of a horse 23.13 f.; of a samnivesa Ragaḍā by name 45.17 f.; of Avanti and Ujjainī 50.3 f., il f.; of Kāśī and Vārāṇaśī 56.21 f.; 27 f.; of Kośala and Kośala 72.31 f., 35 f.; of a patti 112. 9-12, 14-19, 21-24; of summer scenes 113.6-8, 10-12, 21-24; of a town struck with famine 117.20 f.; of Vindhyan forest 118.16 f.; of Narmada 121.1 f.; of Ujjayanī 124.28 f.; of a caravan 134.33 f.; of the town Rayaṇāurī 140.2 f.; of the scenes of rainy season 147.24 f.; of Vijayapurī, territory and town 149.6 f., 20 f.; etc. Then some other passages, which often go with the above, contain what might be legitimately called Apabhramsa forms. They describe situations or activities with short sentences following in quick succession (beginning with terms like ja jahim etc.), as at 50.15 f., 82.25 f., 169.13 f., etc.
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In order to mark out the Apabhramśa traits all these passages can be studied together. The rules about Apabhraṁśa, noted by Hemacandra and other grammarians, are often optional; and later grammarians have recognised an admixture of Prakrit and Apabhramsa to which a name Upanagara is given by Kramadiśvara and Mārkaṇḍeya. Here many passages are in Prakrit so far as the vocabulary and even some forms are considered, but they possess striking characteristics of Apabhramsa the presence of which gives them a label as Apabhramśa passages. The Apabhraṁśa, as Hemacandra presents it, is positively a remodelling of some popular dialect or dialects to the status of a literary language. Such a process must have gone for long in different areas, and all this on the pedestal of Prakrit itself. This alone explains how Apabhramsa forms could encroach upon literary Prakrit, a phenomenon which is seen even in the Paumacariya of Vimala who flourished much earlier than Uddyotana. By Uddyotana's time, Apabhramsa as a literary language, much closer to the spoken form of speech than the standardised Prakrit, was a fact; and that is how it could affect some of the passages. It is perhaps for the first time that we are coming across a large amount of prose which shows Apabhramśa forms. The king uses Apabhramsa forms while addressing an Aśvapati; the grama-nați sings