Jain Journal 1968 04

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 61

APRIL, 1968
205
of small-pox, Camundaraja's attempt to crush Malava, Bhimaraja's successful expedition against Hammuka of Sindhu and Jayasimha's victory over Yasovarman, king of Malava It is further stated in the last canto that Kumarapala repaired the temples of Kedaranatha and Somanatha and passed a law that the wealth of childless persons leaving a widow should not be confiscated to the state after their death There are also fanciful episodes such as defeat of raksasa Barbara by Jayasimha and his overcoming of yoginis
The Kumarapalacarita is composed in 8 cantos consisting of 747 verses It begins with the description of Kumarapala's capital Pattana and takes up the hero as being already on the throne and with representatives of rulers of all provinces attending on him The first five cantos and a part of the sixth are devoted to the description of Anahillapura (Pattana), the wealth of the king, the splendour of the royal temples of Jina, the grandeur of the procession in which the king visited them, the liberality and devotion with which he worshipped the images, the beauty of the king's gardens, and pleasures and luxuries of the king and his subjects in all seasons of the year The latter part of the sixth canto contains an account of the warfare between the armies of Kumarapala and Mallikarjuna, the king of the Kankana, which ended in the defeat and death of the latter and a brief account of the relations of Kumarapala with contemporaneous kings The last two cantos are devoted to the expression of moral and religious sentiments, in the seventh, they are placed in the mouth of the hero, and in the eighth, they come as instructions from the goddess Srutadevi to the hero given by her at his prayer
We have to remember that Hemacandra set upon himself the task of illustrating the rules of his grammar in the same order as they appear in his grammar and as a result some of the verses are almost unreadable but Hemacandra's ingenuity, it must be said, has transcended this apparently unsurpassable self-imposed barrier in many of the verses and considering the rigorous limitation the language is simple, sometimes even forceful The descriptions are never trite and in places, there is even real poetry Considerations of space however, prevents us from giving illustrations A perusal of the poem leaves one almost overwhelmed by the savant's erudition