Hemchandracharyas Literary Accomplishment

Author(s): Kumarpal Desai
Publisher: Jaibhikkhu Sahitya Trust

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Hemchandracharya's Literary Accomplishment
grammars such as Kanthabharan."
We find 'Hemlinganushasan'as an independent section of 'Siddhahemashabdanushasan'. It contains 763 stories (hymns) in eight chapters. The aim is to impart knowledge about the rules of gender. This book is, therefore, more expaosive than *Linganushasan' and it is differently designed. In this lyrical poem Hemchandracharya classifies words in all the three genders - the masculine, the feminine and the neuter - in the style of Amarkosh
After 'Sabdanushasan' and 'Kavyanushasan Hemchandracharya wrote Chhandonushasan'. In the style of earlier teachers this book was written to teach prosody to aspirant students. With reference to "Kavyanushasan' and 'Chhandonushan' the celebrated researcher writes in the Preface to "The life of Hemchandracharya":
"Hemchandracharya's learned books, it is true are not distinguished by any great orginality, but they display a truly encyclopaedia arudition and an enormous amount of reading, besides a practical sense which makes them very useful. This applies also to his manuals of poetics and meteries, the Kavyanushasan and the Chhandonushasan accomainied by the author's own commentary."
Hemchandracharya's Literary Accomplishment 15 After giving characteristics of metres in Sanskrit he gives examples in Sanskrit, PRakrit and Apabhramsha languages. Some of the examples are given by Hemchandracharya himself. There are some poetic examples eulogizing Siddharaj, Kumarpal etc. They supply historical information of that era. Thus this book has a great historical importance.
The books is a prosody of Sanskrit and PRakrit. All metres of Sanskrit, Prakrit and Apabhramsha era discussed here with examples. The knowledge of Sanskrit, Prakrit and Apabhramsha prosody is useful to a modern student of prosody, and only 'Chhandonushasan' gives scientific discussion of these metres. This book also gives some useful discussion from the viewpoint of modern prosody. Hemchandracharya discuss intermixture of meters and change of letters of a word the devices with which modern poets use to make new metres.
Kalikalsarvagna Hemchandracharya holds a significant position as a grammarian. With his grammar Ashtadhyayi' Hemchandracharya established a new tradition among earlier tradition Prior to Panini Shaunak, Shaktayan and such other grammarians had lived but Panini's grammar broke new grounds and set a new tradition which Katyayan and Patanjali