Vajjalaggam

SR No.: 020873
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: M V Patwardhan
Publisher: Prakrit Text Society
Publication Year: 1969
Total Pages: 706
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 11 MB

Page 49

xlviii
VAJJĀLAGGAM
(xi) The Literary Form and Merit of the Vajjālagga :
Although the VL is a collection of stanzas arranged under different sections, each of the stanzas is an independent entity complete in itself, presenting forcefully and with epigrammatic terseness, within four short lines, a complete idea or situation in its most salient details, independently of the preceding or following stanzas. Such stanzas are called muktakas (isolates) in Sanskrit. Hāla's Gāthāsaptašati is also a collection of such isolates, not however topically grouped (inder different sec. tions.
All the stanzas in the VL are without exception gāthus i.e. quatrains composed in the Aryā metre, with 12, 18, 12 and 15 (sometimes 18) mitrās in the four quarters respectively. Arya (also called gūthū ) is the special metre used in all Prākrit lyrical poetry and it appears to have primarily belonged to Prākrit poetry and to have been borrowed later on by Sanskrit ( Jacobis ZDMG Vol. 40, 1886, p. 336 ff.)
The introductory stanzas of the VL (1-31 ) give us an idea about the author's views on the nature, composition: recitation: and appreciation of poetry. Prākrit poetry literature ( out of which the VL has been derived, is according to the author, essentially secular and predominantly erotic' ( ATHT, st. 29),
1. The commentator Ratnadeva says in his introductory remarks on st. 1, that the masses are erotic-inded (Taifu 39799t92), and hence the compiler, though well-versed in Sanskrit, prepared the present anthology of Prākrit stanzas. The remark of the commentator lends support to the view that (secular) Prākrit poetry was predominantly erotic. Govardhana (12th. century A.D.), author of the Aryāsaptaśati in Sanskrit, also says in st. 52, that he has carried over "by force (a) into Sanskrit the (erotic) muse, which till then had found its expression only in Prākrit" :
वाणी प्राकृतसमुचितरसा बलेनैव संस्कृतं नीता।
निम्नानुरूपनीर। कलिन्दकन्येव गगनतलम् ।। It must, however, not be forgotten that we have in Sanskrit two important erotic poems, viz. the Srmgārasa taka of Bhartphari and the Amaru-sataka of the poet Amaru, both of them considerably earlier than Govardhana.