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

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by Lilāvāti came back to Pratisthana. He worshipped Parvati there and happily retired to his palace.
LILĀVAI
b) Other Lilävatis and Our Prakrit Poem
Lilavati is such a natural appellation for a graceful girl that no attempt is needed to find out the first Sanskrit writer who coined it. It occurs already in one of the tales of the Bṛhatkatha as the name of the wife of Maya, an Asura or Rākṣasa. According to Puranic sources, Aviksita's wife was one Līlāvati. Haribhadra in his Samaräiccakaha names a queen as Līlāvai. As a proper name it is graceful, sweet, fanciful and romantic. It is interesting and necessary to see what other works bearing this title are there and in what way they are connected with our present text.
Nirvana Lilavati of Jinesvara
Dhanesvara, who finished his Surasundaricariya in Samvat 1095 (-571038 A. D.), records at the close of this work that one of his teachers, namely, Jinesvarasuri, the pupil of Vardhamanasūri, wrote a Kathā, Lilavati by name, composed in graceful expressions, with poetic embellishments and sweet in paranomasia (sleṣa).3 According to the references in the Kharatara Gaccha Paṭṭāvalis, this poem contained some 18000 slokas and was composed in Prakrit gāthās. This Jinesvara wrote a Vrtti on the Astakas of Haribhadra in Samvat 1080 (-57-1023 A. D.); so this Lilavati must have been composed earlier than 1038 A. D. and sometimes about 1023 A. D. Peterson has noted, however, that Jinesvara composed in Samvat 1092 (-571035 A. D.) a Lilavati katha in Asapalli." It is referred to by Sumatigani in Samvat 1295 (-57-1238 A. D.) in his Gaṇadharasardha-sataka-bṛhadvṛtti and by Candratilaka in Samvat 1312 ( -57 = 1255 A. D.) in his Abhayakumara - caritra. It is also known as Nirvāņa Lilavati and its language was Prakrit.
Bṛhatkathamañjarī, p. 145, Bombay 1931; Kathasaritsägara, p. 213, Bombay
1
1930.
2 Jacobi's ed., pp. 299 ff., Calcutta 1926.
3 See Surasumṁdaricariya, Benares 1916, p. 286: 4 arkayoßqqÅÐRI पसन्नवाणीया । अइकोमला सिलेसे विविहालंकारसोहिल्ला ॥ २४३ ॥ लीलावर ति नामा सुवन्नरयगोहहारिसयलंगा । वेस व्व कहा वियरइ जयम्मि कयजणमणाणंदा ॥ २४४ ॥ Some of the expressions have a double meaning qualifying both katha and ves'ya.
4 This information I owe to Acharya Jinavijayaji.
5
Peterson's Reports IV, p. xliv, Bombay 1894.