Lilavai

SR No.: 002796
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: A N Upadhye
Publisher: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan
Publication Year: 1966
Total Pages: 500
Language: Sanskrit, Hindi, English
Classification: Book_Devnagari & Literature
File Size: 15 MB

Page 498

APPENDIX
391
A Review by Dr. L. Renou, Paris :
. The narrative literature of Jain inspiration grows without respite; it surpasses largely in mass, if not in interest, that which is accessible to us on the Brahmanic or the Buddhistic side. Nevertheless, as is remarked by Jina Vijayamuni in the interesting preface he has added to the present work, one had no longer found any Prākrit Kavyas of non-Jain inspiration since the distant times of the discovery of the Setubandha or Gaüdavaha. In this field of studies, it is an event to bring out a poem from the same source, namely Lilāvai or Lilāvati. The author is very nearly unknown; even his name, Koühala (=Skt Kutühala?), is not well-established, but from the works that he mentions or knows and those in which he in his turn is referred to, he should be placed towards 800 of our era.
The general inspiration of the work is derived from the Brhatkatha which, as is known to-day through the works of Dr. Alsdorf and of Dr. Upadhye himself, has developed quite a Jaina ramification. The hero is none other than the king Hāla of the dynasty of the Sātavāhanas and the author narrates that king's expedition (not confirmed historically) against the king Silāmegha of Ceylon. But it is not a question of authentic history in this Poetic romance, despite the author's attempt at connecting the story with some specific site, namely, the mouth of the Godávarī and the sacred place of Bhīmeśvara. It is a legend of the most conventional type, and aims at illustrating the kathā as it is defined by Rudrata: an account in verse (interspersed with rare and brief prose passages), in gāthās, without division into sections, and consisting, like the Kadambari, of narratives within narratives, which are given in an order contrary to the chronological order and which are put in the mouth of the persons other than the principal hero.
The dialect is Mahārāştri, with a few rare words of desi origin. One of the final gāthās affords a proof for the above statement: marahattha-desi-bhasa. As it is for the first time that such a linguistic indication appears in an ancient text and on the other hand, the dialect appears to be well-established, one could now, without doubt, see more clearly the relations of this literary language with the māhārāşfti of the grammarians. The great controversy about the relations between literary texts and theoreticians, revived by the recent researches of Luigia Nitti, will find fresh matter in the Lālāvai.
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Dr. Upadhye sets forth all such questions and discusses them with a real fund of information in the lengthy introduction which he has prefixed to the edition of the Lilāvai. He shows his capabilities when he collects together all that is known about the ancient texts bearing the name Lilāvati (the well known work on mathematics is not the only one) or again when he describes the literary work of Hāla, the topographical and archaeological problems raised by Saptagodāvara; or again when he takes up the general question of Prakrit, not without giving, in many cases, his own views on the subject. On the other hand, he gives us here but a choice of grammatical observations, inviting the reader to draw, from the final glossary, material to trace for himself the morphology of Māhārāştri. The glossary is complete and prepared with great care. Who can however, be better suited than Dr. Upadhye to complete this linguistic picture? Let us hope that he does so on some other occasion.
As for the understanding of the text, an English translation would have certainly he'ped the student. In the absence of that, the student will be profited by reading the Sanskrit gloss, of an unascertainable date and author, which renders literally, like a chāyā, most of the gāthâs of Koühala; the lacunae have been filed,