Vikram Journal 1974 05 11

SR No.: 523101
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Rammurti Tripathi
Publisher: Vikram University Ujjain
Publication Year: 1974
Total Pages: 200
Language: Hindi, English
Classification: Magazine, India_Vikram Journal, & India
File Size: 11 MB

Page 179

विक्रम
was much closer to the original than the two kashmirian versions, which contained alterations, omissions and interpolations (see his "Essay on Gunadhya and the Brhatkatha" translated by Rev. A.M. Tabard, Reprint from the Quarterly Journal of the Mythic Society, Banglore. 1923).
Unfortunately, the Vasudevahindi was not yet printed and not avaible to scholars, including Lacote, before 1930. After making a comparative and critical study of the Vasudevahindi and the Brhatkar haslokasangraha, this author has noticed both the narrations so strikingly similar in content, including exactly parellel verbal expressions in many instances, that he has come to the conclusion that there must have been a common source available to both authors from which they have borrowed their material. These narrations must have forined an integral part of the lost Brhat katha of Gunadhya. There are not only similarities but also deviations between the two which are sufficiently important to rule out a mutual dependency of the above works.
Both the Vasudevahindi and the Brhatkathaslokasangraha are incomplete; only one-fourth of the Brhatkathostokasangraha is available, whereas as stated earlier, the Vasudevahindi text lacks only the missing two lambhas in the middle and the uvasamhara at the end. In general the more complete Vasudevahindi text not only supports the genuineness of the Brhatkathaslokasangraha but also supplements its missing Sargas. In turn the authenticity of the Vasudevahindi contents is enhanced by similar contents in the Kathasaritsagara and the Brhat kathamanjari.
Further, the Brhatkatha was composed in Prakrit prose and so is the Vasudevahindi, the first prose version at hand. Lacote assigns the 8th or the 9th century A.D, as the period of Buddhasvamin, the author of the Brhatkathaslokasangaha. Even if an earlir date is ascribed to him (the 5th century A.D. in the opinion of Vasudevsharan Agrawala; Introduction to the Hindi Translation of Kathasaritsagara, Vol. I by Kedarnath Sharma, Bihar Rashtra Bhasa Parishad, Patna, 1960), the Vasudevahindi remains the earliest recession of the Brhatkatha.
The Brhatkatha of Gunadhya seems to have been quite popular with the Jains who were always in search of some good narrative for their religious themes. There are, besides the Vasudevahindi, Jain works in Sanskrit, Prakrit and Apabhramsha which have assimilated the tales of the Brhat katha in different context to such an extent that it is now difficult to distinguish their material from the original. Jinasens, Gunabhadra Harisena, Puspa danta, Hemachandra and others, both Digambara and Svetambara authors, have followed a similar tradition, one which seems to be different from the Vasudevahindi. This shows that since the original Brhat katha was not available, different prevailing traditions ware made use of by different authors.
Here we are mainly concerned with the narration of the conquest of Gandharvadatta which seems to have been the most popular tale among Jain writers right upto the 12th century A.D. Besides in the Vasudevahindi, Brhatkathaslokasangraha, Kathasaritsagaru and the Brhatkathamanjari, the narration finds an important place in Jinasena's Harivamsa purana (783 A. D.), Gunabhadra's Uttarapurana (897 A. D,), Harisena's Brhatkathakosa (931 A. D.), Puspadanta's Mahapurana (10th century A. D.),