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OCTOBER, 1906]
NOTES ON INDIAN HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY.
263
Abhinava-Pampa ;"10 and he has thus shewn that he had the secondary appellations of AbhinavaPampa, by which he seems to have been best known, and of Bharatikarņapůra. He has introduced the appellation Abhinava-Pampa in the first verse of each canto after the first. He has introduced the appellation Bharatikarnapura in the last verse of each of cantos 2, 3, 7 and 8. And he has similarly introduced an appellation Kavitâ manohara in the last verse of each of cantos 1, 10, and 12 to 15, and an appellation Sâhityavidyadhara in the last verse of each of cantos 4 to 6, 9, and 11 ; whereby he has established for himself the further appellations Kavitamanôhara and Sahityavidyadhara. In all these passages, however, the author has distinctly alluded to himcelf, and not to any god named after himself. The real nature of these allusions by the poet to himself, was properly recognised by the editor of the Pampa-Rámáyana, who, on page 19 of his Introdaction to the work. has, in his analysis of the poem, summarised verse 1 of canto 2 as “invocation praising himself;" to which he has attached the footnote: - "It is a peculiarity of the poem that the concluding and "opening stanza of each ásvása, in continuing the action described in the narrative, introduces the "author's naine in place of the hero's." But, as a sample of what the poet actually did, we will examine the passages which first introduce the appellations Kavitâmanohara and Sahityavidyâd bara. Verses 122 to 130 of canto 4 take the narrative to the point at which Janska, mounted on the magic horse, - actually, on a Vidyadhara (see the prose after verse 102) who had assumed the guise of a horse for the purpose, - arrived at the town of Rathanûpurachakravala, and found, in a grove near it, a very charming temple of Jina; then comes a prose sentence, which says: - "Having seen this most excellent temple of Jina, and having circumambulated it;" then comes verse 131, which says, in expanded terms, that Sahityavidyadhara entered the Jain temple in order to sing a hymn of praise to the Jina; then verse 1 of canto 5 says, similarly in expanded terms that Abhinava-Pampa entered the temple of Jina; and then the action is carried on by a prose sentence, which says: - "Thus having entered, and having adorned the central hall with the rays of light from the water-lilies that were his feet, and having faced the lord of the three worlds, bringing his hands together like a water-lily closing a bud;" and so there is introduced the prayer, beginning in verse 2, addressed by Janaka to the god. Here, the name Sábityavidyadhara plainly denotes, from one point of view, Janaka, as having in company with bim (odhitya) the Vidyadhara in the guise of the horse, and, from the other point of view, Abhinava Pampa, as being a very demigod or master of learning (vidyddhara) in literary composition (sdhitya). And thus the author here brought himself distinctly into the action of the narrative, by identifying himself, througli the appellation Sahityavidyadhara, with the hero of this part of it. Again, verse 188 of canto 1 brings an earlier part of the narrative to the point at which, - two sons, Vijayabâhu and Purandara, having been born to Surendramanyu, son of Vijayaratha, - the latter, Vijayaratha, having thus "three eyes," had made to bow down to himself all the three worlds, the desires of which, directed towards himself, were multiplied to a three-fold extent; and verse 189 recites that, baving given to the Earth the gratification of all her desires, - with the goddess Speech displaying herself as the flamingo on the water-lily that was his mouth, and with big Fame reaching so far and wide as for what is to be expressed by them, and of the use of qualificative expresions with what is to be qualified by them and of the employment of metaphors, had thrown into the shade even Kalidisa: in verso 3, he has spoken of himself, again as Kavirkjabatha, as "the only man on earth" who knew how to speak (compose) with elegance and sweet. ness; and in verse 249, given to illustrato a certain metre, he has mentioned himself as NAgavarma, and has described himself as matching the gods Brahman, Indrs, and Vishnu in his possession of surpassingly excellent speech and other attributes, and as not having any match (apart from ther).
For some Sanskrit verses of the same class, attributed to Samantabhadra and Akalanka, reference inay be made to Dr. Hultsach's translation of the Brayana-Belgola epitaph of Mallishna Ep. Ind. Vol. III. p. 199, verse 8, p. 200 f., verses 21 to 23.
We find a tendency towards this southern habit of bombastio self-praise in even the Aiholo inseription of A. D. 634-85; Ravikirti, the composer of that record, has therein described himself as having "by his poetic skill "attained to the fame of Kalidasa and of Bhiravi; see Ep. Itul. Vol. VI. p. 12, verse 87.
The habit contrasta remarkably with the modesty of the illustrious poet Kalidasa himself, who, in the second verse of his Raghuvarada, has intimated that he felt at least considerable doubt whether he could do justioe to the great topio that be then had in band, the history of the Solar Race.
1. Seo, for instance, page 230 above, note 4
