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12. SOME EARLIEST LITERARY REFERENCES
TO THE SARANGT
It appears that the Sargitaratnākara of Sarrigadeva, composed in the first half of the thirteenth century A.D., is the earliest musicological work to mention the Sārangi as a type of stringed instrument. The Sārangi figures here in a list of some lwenty-one stringed instruments beginning with the Viņā.! The relevant line is as follows: N771712 Criat777191-17 91971: 1
Sangitaratnākara, Ilf. 215)
Two Prakrit works of Jain Kathā (religious narrative) literature contain incidental references to the Sārangi, and these are important in that those works are earlier than the Sangitaratnākara. One of these works is Lakşmaņagani's Supāsaņāhancariya, composed in 1145 A. D. (1199 V. S.). It contains three references to the Sārangi. In the tale of Maņisimha, two Vidyādharis are described as singing in a Jain temple, with Sārangi accompaniment. The relevant verse is as follows:
पूइय जिणपडिमाओ भत्तीए वदिऊण विहिसार । सारं गीगयगेयज्झुणीए गायति गीयाई ॥५॥
(p. 132, v. 57) ['Having worshipped the Jina images with devotion and performing vandana with proper ceremony, they were singing songs accompanied by the musical notes of the Sarangi'. ]
Further in the same narrative, the musical notes of the Sārangi are said to be drowned in the bustle created by the crowd of Vidyadhara-s rushing in for worship :
तो तेण कलयलेण सारं गिरवम्मि अवलविज ते । 43A12 40 729 as 72' ll soll
v. 60.),
