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Some Prakrit Poets
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Prakrit poets. As in the two references previously considered, here too he is found in Hala's company.
7. The other two, Nandivṛddha and Pottisa, also must have been renowned Prakrit poets. One Namdiyaḍdha (Sk. Nanditaḍhya) is known to us as the author of a small work on Prakrit metres called Gāthālaksana.8 The form in which the Gathālakṣaṇa is at present before us is the work of a Jain author. But Velankar has serious doubts about the genuineness of certain parts of the Gathalakṣaṇa. There are clear borrowings from works like Svayambhücchandas. Again we find the definition of an Apabhramsa metre cited elsewhere under the name of poet Namdaḍdha (kai Namdaddha)10, but it is not found in the Gathālakṣaṇa. The present Gāthālakṣaṇa seems to be a mutilated and interpolated version or recast of the metrical manual composed by a poet Namdiyaḍḍha which treated Prakrit and Apabhramśa metres. And that Namdiyaddha may be the same as the Namdiuḍdha of the Karpuramanjart. Some of the commentaries on Hala's Gāhā-sattasai ascribe the authorship of Gatha IV. 92 (N. S. Edition) to Namdiuḍdha. The Gāthā seems to be an old one. A portion of this Gatha is quoted under Siddhahema VIII. ii. 80 to illustrate the fact that Desya words like vodraha 'youngman' invariably preserve an r-cluster (instead of optionally assimilating it). As against the form voḍahio of the Gähä-sattasai mss., the Siddhahema offers us vodrahio which preserves the original phonology.
8. Now we consider Potţisa whom Rajasekhara has mentioned along with Hariuḍdha, Namdiuḍdha and Hala. Pottisa figures as the chief minister of Hala-Satavahana in the Lilävaikaha of Kouhala11 (c. 800 A.D.). There at times he is respectfully referred to as Poṭṭisa-miśra and Śri-poṭṭisa. Four Gāthās (viz., I. 89, II. 73, III. 93, V. 3) from Hala's Gāhāsattasai are attributed to Pottisa.12 One more, viz., I.4 also is to be added to these: In the N. S. edition of the Gahasattasai the name of its author is given as Vodisa, but Bhuvanapala's commentary gives the name as Pottisa and in one MS. of that commentary (that which is in the MSS. collection of the L.D. Institute of Indology, Ahmedabad) the
