Indological Studies

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

Page 39

Dombikā and Sidgaka
29
in the ABH. (p. 181), the fourth is Sidgaka. These detinitions were borrowed by Hemacandra also, and he seems to have before him the reading singaka in the place of șidgaka (KA., p. 446, verse 62). In the Viveka on the KA., however, Hemacandra uses the form śingataka (p. 446).
Now there is no mention of Sidgaka (or S'ingaka) among the Uparūpakas treated in the Spřgāraprakāśa. But there occurs one S’rigadita and Raghavan has rightly suggested that Bhoja's S'rigadita may be the same as the Sidgaka of the earlier authorities.21. Bhoja's definition is nothing but a slight elaboration of the definition cited in the ABH.22 Srigadita was just a Sanskritic and respectable-looking substitute for the un-Sanskritic and pedestrian Sidgaka which is found in various strange forms such as Siigaka, Silpaka (possibly originating in a corrupt reading), Singataka and Signataka. And part of the first stanza in Bhoja's definition :
तत्र श्रीरिव दानवशत्रोयस्मिन् कुलाङ्गना पत्त्युः ।
quefa thagafim........ which adds something new to the earlier definition, clearly betrays the effort to validate etymologically the new name S'rigadita (=ériyā gaditam). This Sanskritization of Sidgaka as S'rigadita stands on par with the Sanskritization of Dombilikā as Durmiliki as it has been already suggested.23
But strangely enough Hemacandra seems to have been a victim of this change of name and he defines S'ingaka and S'rigadita separately as two different types of Uparūpakas! For the former he reproduces the definition cited in the ABH. and for the latter he uses Bhoja, compressing his definition into a single stanza.24 The fact that in later times we find a tendency to set up new types of Uparūpakas merely on the basis of corrupt readings or alternative names is suggestive of obsolescence of some of the types, as also of the break in the tradition.
7. The designations Sidgaka and Singaka remiod us of the word șidga which is found in various forms such as şidga khidza,