Bruhat Katha kosha

SR No.: 016060
Original Sutra Author: Harishen Acharya
Publisher: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan
Publication Year: 1943
Total Pages: 566
Language: Prakrit, Sanskrit
Classification: Dictionary & Dictionary
File Size: 16 MB

Page 148

INTRODUCTION
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Prakrit, Apabhramsa and the post-Apabhramsa stages of our modern Indo-Aryan languages should be critically edited and studied with a view to enrich our knowledge of Indian life, literature and languages.
7. HARISENA, THE AUTHOR: HIS PLACE AND DATE
In the annals of Indian literature, we come across a few authors bearing the name Harişeņa. i) Harişeņa, the stylistic panegyrist of Samu. dragupta and the composer of the Allahabad pillar inscription of c. A.D. 345. ii) Harişeņa, the author of Apabhramba Dharmaparīkņā”, gives the following details about himself: In the territory of Mevāda, there was one Hari, expert in various arts, in the Dhakkada-kula of Siri-ujaüra (v. l. Siri-ojapura). He had a pious son Govaddhaņa (Sk. Govardhana) by name. Guņavati was his wife, and she was devoted to the feet of Jina. They had a son Harişeņa who became famous as a learned poet. He left Cittaüļu (Sk. Citrakūța) and came to Acalapura on some business (niya-kajjē). There he studied metrics and rhetorics, and narrated or composed this Dharmaparīksā when 1044 years of the Vikrama era had elapsed. He says that the Dharmapariksă was formerly composed by Jayarāma in gāthă metre and the same he is narrating in Paddhadiyä metre. Harişeņa's work is older by 26 years than the Sanskrit Dharmaparīkşă of Amitagati. iii) Harişeņa or Hari, the author of the Karpūraprakara or Sūktāvalī which has been already introduced above (p. 43): He tells us that he wrote Nemicaritra also; and his teacher was Vajrasena, the author of Trişaşțisāra-prabandha. His date is not definitely settled. "If this Vajrasena is identical with the author of an incomplete Trişașțiśalākā puruşacaritra in Sanskrit proses, then we will have to put him later than Hemacandra; and in that case, Hari is sufficiently later than 12th century A. D. All that is definite about his date is that he is earlier than Saṁvat 1504 (-57 = 1447 A. D.), when Somacandra wrote his Kathă. mahodadhi* giving illustrative stories on the Sūktāvali. iv) Harişeņa, or Pandita Harişeņa, according to the Poona Ms. (No. 266 a of A 1882-83, Bhandarkar O. R. I.) composed Jagatsundari.yogamālādhikära on the basis of various medical treatises when the Yorīprăbhịta was not accessible to him. The problems about his personality and date and relation of his composition: with that of Yaśahkirti can be solved only after some more material becomes available to enable us to study the mutilated Ms. at Poona. The Ms. was written in Samvat 1582 (-57 = 1525 A. D.) which is the later limit for the age
1 Keith: A History of Sanskrit Literature, pp. 77f. 2 This was lately discovered by me; I read a paper on it at the Hyderabad Session
of the AllIndia Oriental Conference; and it is now published in the Silver
Jubilee Number of the Annals of the B. O, R, I., Poona. 3 Jesalmere Catalogue, p. 53. 4 Its contents and date are noted above, pp. 43-4. 5 See the details discussed by Pts. Jugalkishore, Dipachand Pandya and Premi in
the Anekānta, vol. II, pp. 495f., 611f., 666f., 635f.