Indological Studies

Author(s): H C Bhayani
Publisher: Parshva Prakashan

Page 13

1. PARYAYABANDHA AND SAMGHĀTA
1. The Vrajyā, Paryā and Paryāyabandha
While describing the various types of literary compositions or genres Viśvanātha has defined Kośa as a collection of verses that are contextually independent from each other, and that Kośa which is arranged in Vrajyās is, according to him, specially attractive.! Vrajyā here designates any collection of homogeneous verses, the homogeneity consisting in the sameness of topic. We have several well-known instances of Sanskrit and Prakrit anthologies of stray verses arranged topic-wise into sections called Vrajyā. Vidyākara's Subhāṣitaratnakośa? (c. 1100 A. D.) consists of fifty Vrajyās which include Vasanta-vrajyā, Mānini-vrajyā, Asati-vrajyā, Kavistutivraiyā, etc. Similarly the Prakrit anthology Vajjālagga3 (after eighth century A. D.) and Sādhāraṇadeva's recension of Hāla's Saptaśataka (about fourteenth century A. D.) have Sk. vrajyā or Pk. vajjā as the section name. Now Vrajyā is indeed "a rare word for ‘section."4 It is otherwise known only in the meaning of 'the act of going or moving. The connection between the two meanings of vrajyā is anything but obvious. The fact is, vrajya in the sense of a topical section of a verse anthology' is not a genuine Sanskrit word. As defined by Viśvanātha and as known from Sanskrit verse anthologies, it is nothing but a Sanskritization of the Prakrit term vajjā. Prakrit vajjā with the meaning adhikāra “topic, section is recorded by Hemacandra, significantly as a Deść word in his Dešināmamālā (7, 32). Again the Vajjālagga equates vajjā with paddhai, Sk. paddhati, and defines it as a group of Gāthās pertaining to the same subject-matter or topic. Thus according to the Vajjālagga, the meaning and function of the term vajjà are the same as those of the term paddhati used in Sanskrit anthologies like Bhartphari's Nitišataka, Jalhaņa's Sūktimuktāvali, Vallabhadeva's Subhāşitāvali, etc. The meaning adhikära for vaijā given by Hemacandra is obviously based on such usage as he