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NON-CANONICAL SVETĀMBARA LITERATURE
author deliberately uses Sanskrit and not Prākṛta, because Sanskrit was the language of the educated people. His language is however very easy to understand, and he does not care, like Dhanapala or Somadeva, to imitate the style of Subandhu or Bāṇa.
Dhanapala,1 who lived in the last quarter of the tenth century AD, is the author of the Tilakamañjarī,82 which was probably composed in the very beginning of the reign of Paramāra Bhoja. This author had written his Prākṛta Paiyalacchi in the vs 1029 corresponding to AD 972 when Manyakheța was sacked by the Malava army. In the Tilakamañjarī,84 some extremely valuable information regarding the early kings of the Paramāra dynasty has been given. The author is a conscious imitator of Bāņa, but he is only a very inferior imitator. The hero Harivāhana reminds us of Candrāpīḍa of the Kadambari, and his friend Samaraketu is modelled on Vaisampayana of Bāņa's work. The heroine, Tilakamañjarī, instinctively reminds us of Kādambarī and Malayavatī and is in every respect like Mahāśveta, the immortal creation of Bāṇa. In Bāṇa's work the childless king Tārāpīḍa worships Śiva in the Mahākāla temple, and here in the Tilakamañjarī, Meghavahana for his son worships Jina in the temple of Śakrāvatāra Siddhāyatana of Ayodhyā. It appears from Dhanapala's work that this temple of Jina at Ayodhyā was established long before its composition. It is extremely interesting that this Jaina shrine of Ayodhya is mentioned in Jinaprabha's Vividhatirthakalpa.85 We should remember that the grandfather of the poet was originally a resident of Sankasya86 and Dhanapala had probably himself personally visited this shrine of Ayodhya.
Dhanapala, as we learn from later works like the Prabhavakacarita and Prabandhacintamani,88 received favours from both Munja and Bhoja. This is also confirmed by his own work. A summary of this work, entitled Tilakamañjarīkathāsāra,89 was written by another poet of the same name at Patan in vs 1261.
90
Another work of Dhanapala is the Ṛṣabhapañcāsikā,90 a poem of 50 stanzas. This is written in Prākṛta and the first twenty verses contain allusions to the events of the life of the first Tīrthamkara; the remaining thirty stanzas are devoted exclusively to praise of Rṣabha. This poem contains probably the earliest reference to chess board.91
Quite a number of other works by Svetambara writers were written before AD 1000. I should mention here the Ajitaśāntistava92 (Ajiyasantithaya) by Nandiṣena who lived before the ninth century. This poem, written in rare but artificial metres in Prākṛta, glorifies
