Treasury of Jain Tales

SR No.: 006762
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: V M Kulkarni
Publisher: Shardaben Chimanbhai Educational Research Centre
Publication Year: 1994
Total Pages: 468
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 17 MB

Page 23

no intention at all of depicting sentiment. Abhinavagupta in his Locana (p.324) defines it as follows:
Parikatha is the narration of numerous anecdotes one after another in a variety of ways to inculcate one of the four purusärthas, dharma (virtue) and the like." Bhoja defines it as follows: That is called parikatha wherein "experts in narrating stories compete in the art one after another desiring to outshine each other by narrating a story each. Its example is a story called Sūdraka'. This Sūdraka (parikathā) is lost. Nor any other work of the type of parikatha is now available. With reference to Keith's statement "He (Sudraka) is later the hero of a parikatha (The Sanskrit Drama, p.129,.n.4)". V.Raghavan remarks: "Dr. Keith says ....that Südraka is later the hero of a parikathā, the Sūdrakavadha, on the authority of an article on Răyamukuta.... . All the rare kävyas mentioned by Rāyamukuta are borrowed from Bhoja's Srngāra-Prakāsa. Therefore the name Sudrakavadha is wrong. It should be Sūdrakakathā. Sudraka was not killed (vadha); he himself entered fire : 'शूद्रकोऽग्निं प्रविष्टः,as the prologue to the Mrcchakatika says."16 The definitions of parikathā given by Abhinavagupta and Bhoja somewhat differ. 'Putting Bhoja and Abhinavagupta together’, Hemacandra says on p.464 of his Kavyānus' asana:
एकं धर्मादिपुरुषार्थमुद्दिश्य प्रकारवैचित्र्येणानन्तवृत्तान्तवर्णनप्रधाना शूद्रकादिवत् परिकथा ।
14. एकं धर्मादिपुरुषार्थमुद्दिश्य प्रकारवैचित्र्येणानन्तवृत्तान्तवर्णनप्रकारा
fiction 15. feu EA 251 uffithi 5911 : part 1 श्रूयन्ते कथ्यन्ते शूद्रकवत् जिगीषुभिः परिकथा सा तु ।।
Vide Srngäraprakās'a (Mysore edn.,
Ch.XI,p,469 and Hemacandra's
Kävyānusåsana (Mahävira Jaina
Vidyālaya, Bombay, 1964, edn., p. 464) 16. Bhoja's Śrngāra Prakās'a by V.Raghavan, pp.819-820. 17. Ibid, p.624; on p.819 he says: 'a round of tales', in place of 'a
series of stories'.