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128
Dr. Charlotte Krause : Her Life & Literature
In view of its historical importance and also for its own poetic merits, I render the poem here, critically emended on the basis of the printed edition with the help of the two manuscripts which I was able to obtain”.
The understanding of this poem is made somewhat difficult by the fact that behind the inspired eulogy with its graceful poetic figures hides itself a smart attack on the system of Vaiseșika Philosophy100 achieved with the help of occasional paranomasia. Thus the word 'guna', the leitmotiv, as it were, of the whole poem, is sometimes used in its conventional meaning of 'virtue', 'merit', ‘excellent quality', sometimes as a logical terminus technicus meaning quality', in contradistinction to dravya, “substance', while in some cases it is to be understood as conveying both the meanings simultaneously. Other words too are used with a similar double entendre, as the text itself will make clear. Though I am not sure whether I have in every case been able to understand the meaning or meanings which the poet wanted to convey, still I add, with some hesitation, a translation, in order to facilitate the ensuing discussion. The text seems so full of allusions, among them such to contemporaneous persons and events that it will perhaps never yield all its secrets to the modern reader, far remote as he is from the golden age of Siddhasena and his brilliant patron. Here follows the text :
गुणवचनद्वात्रिंशिका समानपुरुषस्य तावदपवादयन् कीदृशः
किमेव तु महात्मनामपरतन्त्रधीचक्षुषाम् । अपास्य विनयस्मृती भुवि यश: स्वयं कुर्वता
त्वयातिगुणवत्सलेन गुरवः परं व्यंसिताः ।। १ ।। श्रीराश्रितेषु विनयाभ्युदयः सुतेषु
बुद्धिर्नयेषु रिपुवासगृहेषु तेजः ।
St. 1. Pșthvi.
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