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The Apabhramśa Poet Caturmukha
197
ally the stanza in question has been taken from Svayambhū's own epic. Sc. VI. 54.1 is identical with the opening Dhruvaka of the seventyseventh Sandhi of his Paumacariu. 10
7. Of the other citations from Caturmukha Sc. VI. 63.1 can plausibly be taken to relate to an incident in the narrative of Rāma.11
Its original text is
nam pavaru palāsu le coddaha lakkha
vaņasuncărima phullia / nimisaddler sara-sallia //
Now the published text of the Sc. is based on a sixteenth century manuscript which is palpably incorrect in numerous places from several points of view. The stanza under discussion is correct in so far as it is considered metrically. It is given as an example of Koilarimcholi and aecordingly it has (6 + - - =) 10 mātrās in the old pādas and (6 + 4+ - =) 13 mātrās in the even ones. But grammatically it is unsatisfactory in several points. pavaru palāsu of the first pāda, being in the sigular, cannot be a proper upamāna for an upameya in the third pāda, which consists of plural (fourteen) entities Obviously pavaru palāsu is corrupt for pavara palāsa. One familiar with Apabhramśa manuscripts can quote numberless examples of unjustified addition and ommission of -u in the wordfinals in late Apabhramśa manuscripts. Secondly vanasaṁcārima is! uasatisfactory as a compound and if vana is separated, it cannot construe. It appears to be corrupt for vaņe. Lastly from the fourth pāda it is clear that the stanza describes a situation in battle wherein warriors have been pierced with arrows and their number is given in the third pāda. As it stands the third pāda means 'those fourteen lakhs'. Now to say that in a particular encounter in a battle fourteen lakh warriors were pierced with arrows within a trice is rather a tall order even for the epics! lakkha in all likelihood is a corruption of rakkha12 'demons', and accordingly the emended text of Sc. VI 63.1 and its translation would be as follows:
