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 130

INTRODUCTION
while the expression of U has a popular character, showing forms, vocabulary, expressions and stylistic features drawn from Apabhramsa and Deśī stock. Haribhadra shows maturity and serious temper, while U adds a number of contexts in a light tone and even tries to justify their presence in a dharma-katha. The wider and popular appeal of Km is further apparent from its miraculous, erotic and jocular touches which are not very much favoured by H. Though U has received lessons in Jainism and Pramāṇa-Nyaya from H, he outshines his teacher in his liquid Gathas and catching contexts with which he has embellished his Prabandha.
In many a context in Km we find ideas and expressions echoed from the canonical texts, Niryuktis, Smrtis and from classical works like the Sākuntalam etc. as indicated in the Notes here and there.
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12. THE KUVALAYAMĀLĀ-KATHA OF RATNAPRABHASŪRI
May be under the impetus given to Sanskrit learning under the Paramāra rulers of Malwa like Muñja and Bhoja and the Chalukya kings of Gujarat like Siddharaja and Kumarapala, there was seen an attempt to put into Sanskrit some of the earlier works in Prakrit and Apabhraṁśa. For instance, Amitagati1 wrote his Dharmaparīkṣa in Sanskrit (A. D. 1014); and it is obviously based on earlier Prakrit and Apabhramśa works of the same name composed by Jayarāma and Hariṣena. Jayarama's work in Prakrit is not discovered as yet, but Hariṣena specifically refers to it. Likewise Amitagati's Pañcasamgraha and Aradhana are Sanskrit versions of earlier Prakrit works of those titles. In Gujarat it is found that Pradyumnasuri2 prepared a Sanskrit digest or epitome, the Samarādityasamkṣepa (A. D. 1268) of the Samaraiccakaha of Haribhadra (c.A. D. 700-777); and amongst his contemporaries and colleagues Munideva epitomised in Sanskrit the Santināthacaritra (A. D. 1265) of Devacandra who had written it in Prakrit, so also Ratnaprabha presented in Sanskrit, Kuvalayamālā-katha-samkṣepa (Kmk) a stylistic digest of Uddyotana's Kuvalayamālā (Km) in Prakrit. It is interesting to note that both of them had their works corrected by Pradyumnasuri. It is such Sanskrit adaptations that gave a set-back to the study and circulation of earlier Prakrit works which, in due course, were neglected and some of them even lost into oblivion. Many Mss. of them were not prepared, because the thirst for their contents was satisfied by the Sanskrit versions.
The Prakrit work of Uddyotana and its stylistic Sanskrit digest by Ratnaprabha, both of which are edited here need a comparative study. The Km has 13,000 or 10,000 granthas according to the Longer or Shorter Recension, but the granthagras of Kmk are given differently as 3,804, 3,894 and 3,994 in different Mss. Any way Kmk is roughly one-third of the extent of Km. The Km is onewhole text without any formal divisions of chapters etc., while Kmk is divided into four Prastavas: the second and fourth are nearly of equal length; the first is almost half of them; and the fourth is a little less than double of them. Both Km and Kmk are apparently in mixed prose and verse. The structure of
1 N. PREMI: Jaina Sahitya aura Itihasa (Bombay 1956), pp. 275 f.; A. N. UPADHYE: Harişena's Dharmaparikṣa in Apabhramsa, Annals of the B. O. R. I., XXIII, pp. 592 f.
2 H. JACOBI: Samaraditya-samkṣepa, Ahmedabad 1906; Samaräiccakaha, B. I. Calcutta 1926.