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Prakrit and Apabhramsa Studies
Gaccha. The author of the abridgement has made it clear that he has made selection from the Gathās composed by Pādalipta and that his tempering with the text of the original is confined to simplifying the obscure Deśya expressions. This clearly implies that an overwhelming majority of the original Gāthās have been preserved intact in the abridgement, so that we can take them as the genuine and authentic work of Pādalipta himself. The value of such a conclusion can be appreciated when it is recalled that the original Taraṁgavai is lost. It is no. 543. The text is as follows:
āyāsa-talāe nimmalammi papphulla-camda-paumassa /
maya-bhasala-calaņa-papphandiyassa jonhārao padai // The identity of TL. 543 with Svayambhūcchandas, Pūrvabhāga, 5. 4 is quite obvious, despite the variants pauma- for kamala-, bhasala- for mahuara-, papphamdia- for vihadia- and padai for phurai. Thus a Gathā ascribed by Svayambhū to Pādalipta is actually found in TL. which claims to be a faithful digest of Pādalipta's Taraṁgavai.
3. In the beginning of our discussion we saw that Gāthā 1.75 of the Saptaśataka (henceforth abbreviated as SS.) is according to the commentators either anonymous or by some Vāsudeva, but it is not ascribed by any of them to Pādalipta. Now if we look up for the author's name for the Gātha that just precedes, viz. 1.74, we find that it is either Pālittaka (according to Bhuvanpaāla) or Paulinya (according to Pitāmbara). paulinya can be readily explained as a scribal corruption of pālitta : pālitta misread as pālinna, which, with a preceding danda mis-interpreted as padimātrā, would yield polinna, which was Sanskritized as paulinya. It is not unlikely that due to some confusion, in some cases there crept in an error of one in the tradition of author-ascription as found in some MSS. of the commentaries of the SS. We find a similar discrepancy between Pitāmbara and Bhuvanapāla regarding the author-names for the first few Gāthās of the SS.
4. Here we may point out one more famous Gāthā which is quite reliably ascribed to Pādalipta. Under Siddhahema 1.187 and
