Amrita Collected Papers by A M Ghatage

SR No.: 006968
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jitendra B Shah
Publisher: Kasturbhai Lalbhai Smarak Nidhi Ahmedabad
Total Pages: 530
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 10 MB

Page 129

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Amrita
It is usually difficult to judge the style and poetic excellence of an anthology. The gātās being from very varied hands are of very diverse characteristics. But what strikes one in this case is not their differences as their similarity which is explained on one theory as due to the redaction of Hāla. Speaking generally we find the style of this collection homely and simple and stands in glowing contrast with the style of the later epics like Setubandha and Gaüdavaho. Very scarcely have the authors taken recourse to scholarly devices of making good poetry, such as play on words and recondite allusions. The poets here appear to express their ideas in as direct a manner as possible and this gives their work a peculiar charm. It has a very close connection with the realities of life and a still closer association with natural things which can scarcely be met with in Sanskrit works. They show a certain amount of frankness and rough good sense in dealing with love, while quaint expressions of women would indicate the provincial mode of expressing things. The language is purely Māhārāstri with little mixture of other Prākrits. The work, however, abounds in many Deśī words and the majority of them are found in modern vernaculars especially Marāthī. THE HARIVIJAYA OF SARVASENA
Sarvasena appears to be one of the ancient writers in Māhārāstri and of considerable repute. Unfortunately we know nothing about him or his Prākrit epic Harivijaya. All that we can get to know of him is from later references in the works of Sanskrit rhetoricians. Of them the Dhvanyālokal24 is the oldest to quote from it. A few quotations are also found in the two works of Bhoja, the Srngāraprakāśa 125 and the Sarasvatīkanthābharana 26. In all we have some ten or eleven verses from the work.
The verse from the Dhvanyāloka describes the beginning of the spring in which the god of love takes hold of the face of the goddess of vernal beauty. Another describes the beginning of anger in the heart of Satyabhāmā, one appears to embody the words of Krsna consoling his beloved who had grown angry for the sake of the heavenly flowers, a third describes Rukmini who was greatly delighted at the sight of her husband even though the occasion was one for getting angry. In a verse anger pervading the face of Satyabhāmā is described as charming like the spot on the disc of the moon, while another delineates her face on the verge of getting delighted and the anger passing off being overcome with delight. A few verses give us the reconciliated state of the heroine when her desire of getting the heavenly tree was fulfilled.
From these few quotations it is sufficiently clear that the subject of the epic was the famous episode in Krsna's life, his conquest of Indra for the sake