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 135

96
KUVALAYAMALA
(A. D. 1073-83)1, includes therein the tale of Mayaditya in Prakrit verses, (97 gāthās and 1 sloka in Sanskrit) which is based on Uddyotanasuri's Km, §§ 110-125. Amradeva closely follows this text while writing his gāthās in which many words, poetical devices etc. are inherited from the Km. He is interested in the narration of the story and its moral, so he passes over conversational contexts. The gathā No. 21 is obviously a quotation, found also in the Vajjalaggam (XIV.7). The concluding portion imitates Km too closely by repeating almost as it is katto tāṇam tāṇam mottum etc. In another context, Amradeva (p. 363, verses 35 f.) appears to have before him the text of Km (129.6 f.) while giving details from Samudraśāstra. There are no clear indications to say whether he is following the recension of J or P.
Ratnaprabha gives meagre details about himself in this work. In the colophons, he calls himself the sisya of Paramanandasūri, and further states that this Kmk was corrected by Pradyumnasuri. No other work of Ratnaprabha is known so far, nor do we get any more details about him from any other source. It is highly probable that this Pradyumnasuri2 is the same as that great critic who corrected Vivekamañjarī-ṭīkā (c. 1222 a. D.), Śantināthacarita of Munideva (c. 1265 A. D.), Dharmopadesamālā-vṛtti (c. 1268 A. D.), Salibhadracarita (c. 1278 A. D.), Upamitibhava-prapañca-katha-sāroddhāra (c. 1242 A.D.), Prabhavaka-carita (c. 1278 A. D.) etc. He belonged to the Candragaccha. He seems to have been highly esteemed by his contemporaries as a critic of so much authority that some of them own to have submitted their works to him for correction. He is the author of the Samaraditya-samkṣepa (completed in A. D. 1268), a Digest in Sanskrit, of the Samaraiccakaha of Haribhadra in Prakrit, as already noted above. Ratnaprabha was a contemporary of Pradyumnasuri at whose hands was corrected the Kmk; so he is to be assigned to the middle of the 13th century A. D.
6. UDDYOTANA: THE AUTHOR
Unlike many of our eminent authors, who are usually silent about their biographical details, Uddyotana has obliged the posterity with some factual information about himself and his contemporaries etc. All this is found in his Prasasti (§ 430) which is entirely biographical. It is not identical in both the Mss. But, as already noted above, the basic textual tradition in both of them goes back to the author himself; and the most significant feature is that the details in both being supplementary, and not at all in any way contradictory, give a more complete sketch of the situation.
At Mahādvāra, there lived a famous Kṣatriya, devoted to three karmas (viz., performing ceremonies, repeating the Veda and gifts), Uddyotana by name
1 Ed. Prakrit Text Series, V, Varanasi 1962, Story No. 78, pp. 222-25.
2 For these details about him see H. JACOBI: Samarāditya-samkṣepa, Ahmedabad, 1906, Intro. pp. 2 f.; C. D. DALAL & L. B. GANDHI: A Catalogue of Mss. in the Jaina Bhandaras at Jesalmere, Baroda 1923, pp. 52 ff.; M. D. DESAI: Jaina Sahityano Samkṣipta Itihāsa (in Gujarati) Bombay 1933 (see the Index of authors etc.); H. D. VELANKAR: Jinaratnakosa, Poona 1944 (under different works); Dharmopadeśamālā-vivarana, Singhi Jaina Series No. 28, Bombay 1949, Intro. pp. 19-20.