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13. SOME EARLY LITERARY REFERENCES TO
THE RĀVANAHASTA
The following few notes are meant to supplement the historical information about the stringed musical instrument called Rāvanahasta given by Joep Bor.' Incidentally they also will suggest some modification of Bor's observations on the subject.
In the Jain version of the Rāmāyaṇa, Vāli, a Vidyādhara ascetic, substitutes Lord Siva in the episode of the lifting of Mount Kailāsa by Rāvaņa. According to Vimalasūri's Paumacariya, the earliest available Jain Rāmāyaṇa, the chastened Rāvaņa apologized to Vāli and went to the near-by temples to offer worship to the Jinas. He cut open his arm, drew out the sinews which he used as strings for the Vīņā he fashioned and played upon to accompany the hymn he started to sing in praise of the Jinas (Paumacariya, IX, 87-89). The date of the Paumacariya is a matter of controversy, but it cannot be later than the sixth century. Accordingly it presents a version which is earlier than that we find in the poems of the Southern Saivaite saints.2 Ravişeņa's Padmapurāņa, a Sanskrit recast of Vimalasūri's poem dated 677 A.D., and Hemacandra's Trişastišalākāpuruşacarita, dated 12th cent. A. D., refer to the Viņā fashioned by Rāvana on this occasion as bhuja-viņā.3
Svayambhū’s Paumacariya is an Apabhraíša epic having Ravişena's poem as one of its sources. It is assigned to the fourth quarter of the ninth century. In its version of the episode of Rāvana's chastisement by Vāli, it describes the worship of the Jinas performed by Rāvaņa with the following details of Rāvaņa's. musical performance on the occasion :
After offering the worship Rāvana began to sing sweet, enchariting music which had the seven notes, Sadja, Rşabha, Gandhāra,
| SR No. | 022756 |
| Book Title | Indological Studies |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | H C Bhayani |
| Publisher | Parshva Prakashan |
| Publication Year | 1993 |
| Total Pages | 376 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 25 MB |