Prakrit Paingalam

SR No.: 020566
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Chandramohan Ghosh
Publisher: Calcutta
Publication Year: 1902
Total Pages: 727
Language: Sanskrit
Classification: Book_Devnagari
File Size: 12 MB

Page 7

Vi
(E) No. 160 in the Sanskrit Library of the Queen's College, Benares. A little mutilated here and there, but otherwise a very valuable MS., written in bold and clear Devanágri. It has a very lucid commentary, named Pingala-Prakāśa, which was completed in the month of Ashadha, 1699 (Saka or Samvat not mentioned), by Vansidhara, son of Krishnadeva. Vide pp. 596-97.
(F) No. 65 in the same, complete, but rather difficult to read, transcribed in Devanágri by Viswanátha, in Samvat 1742, month of Jyaistha. Vide p. 597.
(G) No. 66 in the same. It is a commentary by Krishna, and labelled as “ Vansidhari ” on the cover of the MS.. cor
of the s., complete, written in Devanágri apparently by the same scribe as (F).
(H) A small fragment of a commentary by Yādavendra, named Pingalatattwa-Prakásikä, written in Devanágri, and preserved in the same Library.
None of these manuscripts has escaped unscathed from the hands of the transcribers ; hence the text and commentary, even of the same manuscript, do not always tally.
The readings, found in the larger number of the manuscripts, have, as a rule, been adopted for the text, and all the others placed in footnotes, so that a critical scholar may choose for himself any. one of them he likes. Letters enclosed in rectangular brackets
] are suggestions of the Editor, meant to be read along with the rest, or in lieu of a portion of it, as it may fall in with the context.
In ancient India, metrical literature Chhandah (pl) was developed almost into an exact science, reckoned as one of the six limbs of the Vedas (r), and placed in close proximity to Astronomy :
मिक्षा कालो व्याकरणं निरुक्तं छन्दो ज्योतिषमिति. The method of its exposition may bear a comparison even with that of modern science in the West. First of all, certain inductions were arrived at, and these formed the preliminary definitions. The axioms were few, and, though not formally enumerated, were made use of, as self-evident truths, wherever wanted in the chain of argument. The superstructure was raised upon these definitions and axioms in the way of deduction. It is to be remembered that metrical literature preceded the rules of versification, and that these were simply generalisations from the intuitive utterance of early poets. The student of Comparative Philology may find much, in many other languages, to compare with.
The progressive development of the metrical system, from the Vedic to modern times, has been traced in the Introduction to Ghosha's Compendium of Sanskrit Prosody, and may well be left out