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364 Dr. Charlotte Krause: Her Life & Literature
career shortened by an eventual untimely death. It is also possible that Sarodaya may be the unknown monk's name of some of the famous personalities, known only under their later, changed Acārya's name. Anyhow, the dignified and pleasing diction, which sometimes tends to becoming too high-flown, betrays the hand of a promising poet, capable of expressing genuine sentiment in a convincing way by the expedient of so stiff and conventional a medium as Samskṛta poetry.
The poem consists of 26 stanzas, 11 in Śikhariņi (2-12), 1 in Pṛthvi (25), 2 in Mandākrāntā ( 24 and 26), and 12 in Vamsastha metre, alternating with Indravaṁśa ( 1; 16-23 ).
The poem is handed down in manuscript No. 6592 of the Scindia Oriental Institute, consisting of one leaf of country paper of apparently very high age. The characters are ordinary Devanagari, with only the 'ai' and 'au' in Paḍimātrā. In the centre of each side, a rhomb is left blank. The beginning is marked by the usual Jaina diagram and the words "". The colophon runs as follows : " इति श्रीदेलउला - श्रीआदिदेवस्तवनं ॥ छ ॥ कृतमार्द्रजस्थेन सारोदयगणिना ।। शुभं भवतु । श्रीः ।।"
In several places, the text has been corrected by the same hand which wrote the original. Thus, the reading adopted for the present edition, “स्फुरन् रागश्चौरो भवजलनिधौ” ( st. 7 ) is entered on the margin, while the original reading, still stands undeleted in the text itself. The poet obviously felt compunction after having written the word 'carata', which in fact is not pure and genuine Samskṛta, but apparently an attempted Sanskritization of Prākṛta ‘caraḍa', which denotes a special type of robbers. In st. 12 too, the poet can be watched at his work. Here, he had first put down the word 'Präkäśye', then deleted it and written above the line 'dṛśyatve', which in the end, he likewise rejected in favour of 'dhyakṣatve', entered on the margin. The word of ‘sahacaraṇaśīlāḥ' in st. 8 is likewise a later correction. The original order of the stanzas has also been changed later, indicated by marks. The present edition is based on the amended form.
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