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Hemchandracharya's Literary Accomplishment
Hemchandracharya's Literary Accomplishment o
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experience great difficulties."
lyrician and poatic genius. These hymns give an apt glimpse of contemporary folk literature.
Hemchandracharya was the first to give a detailed grammar of the Apabhramsha language. He introduced the Apabhramsha language by showing the constitution of dialects spoken in various regions. The vogue of Sanskrit grammar almost enoad in North India after Hemchandracharya's time. Evalucting 'Siddhahemsabdanushasan' and 'Deshinamamala we can call Hemchandracharya the Panini of the Apabhramsha language.
Eager to light up the lamp of knowledge in the land of Gujarat Kalikalsarvagna turned his eyes from grammar to dictionary. He felt the need of a dictionary to make the study of language easy and knowledge of grammar useful. A dictionary is an important means of knowledge not only for students but also for scholars. In this connaction Hemchandracharya says:
कोशस्येव महीपानां कोशस्य विषामपि ।
उपयोगी महान् यस्मात् क्लेशस्तेन विता भवेत् ।। "A Kosha (treasure) is very useful to kings and a kosha (dictionary) is very useful to scholars. Without it they both
Hemchandracharya complied three Sanskrit dictonaries "Abhidhanachintamani", "Anekarthasamgrah" and "Nighantushesa". For Prakrit-Deshya language he complied "Deshinamamala" is a very valuable dictionary from historical and linguistic points of view. Here Hemchandracharya gives a very fine vocabulary used and popularized by poets. From cultural viewpoint also the content of this dictionary is very useful to students. This dictionary contains many such words as are not found in other dictinaries. With 'Amarkosha' in view Hemchandracharya compiled "Abhidhanachintamani" to give several synomyms of words. It contains one and a half times as many words as does 'Amarakosha'. It also gives more synonyms than Amarkosha does, 'Amarkosha' gives 37 synonyms for the sun, 11 synonyms for the ray, 20 synonyms for the moon, 48 synonyms for 'Shiva', 20 synonyms for 'Brahma', 36 synonyms for 'Vishnu' and 34 synonyms for the sun, 36 for the ray, 32 for the moon, 77 for 'Shiva', 40 for 'Brahma', 75 for 'Vishnu' and 51 for Agni. Thus by compiling this dictionary Hemchandracharya made an immense contribution to the word power of Sanskrit literature.
The total number of verses in Abhidhanachintamani' is 1541.
