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The Sadayavatsa-kathā
237
The text of the third line here seems to be corrupt in a few places, and its interpretation presents difficulties. But the meaning of the rest is quite clear. The poet says : The Rāmāyaṇa story is not enjoyable because of the sufferings of Sitā due to separation. The Bhārata story is marred by the constant family-feud of the Pāndavas and the Kauravas. As against these narratives, the lifestory of Sudaṁsaņa cannot be alleged to have a single fault.
In the case of the third line, we have several variant readings : temā for dedā; koliya for kodiya; suddae for suddhae. Helped by them and in the light of the plot of the tale as known to us from the Sadayavatsa-vira-prabandha of Bhima (see below) we can restore the line as follows:
tențā-koliya-cora-rajju(?)-niradā āhāsidā Suddhae “In the Śūdraka (narrative) the story deals with (disreputable places and episodes involving) gambling dens, Kolis, thieves and police-guards’.
Tențā = diyūtasthāna : see R. N. Shriyan, A Critical study of Mahāpurāpurāņa of Puşpadania. (Ahmedabad, 1969) where various occurrences of tențā are noted and discussed (entries 999 and 1000): koliya = kaulika, “a person of that caste of lower social rank”; cora-rajju = coroddharanika : corarajjuka is used by Kautilya in the sense of a police-officer'.
The author of the țippana on this verse in the Sudaṁsaņacariya, faced with wrocg readings, has offered fanciful interpretations. He reads gomūkala for gotramkali in the second line and explains it as rājyabhrașțāh. The third line is construed with the second line and so, dedākodiya is explained in Gujarati as dhedhavāļā ni kodi havi Bhārate : 'In the Mahābhārata there was the climax of (quarrelling), characteristic of a settlement of untouchables (dhedha). The gloss on suddhae is also confused : vacchasudaye śāstre. It should be sudda yavaeche and it was not a śāstra. Jain, the editor of the Sudaṁsaņacariu, wrongly thought that the name of the work was Siddhaya. Paramanand Jain Shastri too failed to make out the name and has vaguely rendered suddaya as bokasastra?.
