Jain Journal 1989 10

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

Page 34

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JAIN JOURNAL
example of a genuine räsk-bandha. That it is from the pen of a Muslim poet further adds to its uniqueness.
The Upadesa-rasāyana-rāsa of Jinadatta Suri (1076-1155 A.D.) is a sermon in eighty verses praising the genuine spiritual guide and religious practices and denouncing the spurious ones. It is not a real represantative of a rāsaka poem, but a late specimen of a popular literary type pressed in the service of religion. In fact, as it is straight way composed in one single metre without any structural arrangement of parts that usually characterize the rāsaka form, it could as well go under the next section.
The Unstructured Types
Besides the above two types with a definite structure which required the literary subject-matter to be moulded and organized in a particular form, Apabhramsa also used the 'unstructured' verse form, for long and short themes.
The Carita-Kavya
For the epic narrative, the sandhi-bandha was not obligatory, as can be seen from a preserved instance or two of extensive narrative poems using only one metre continuously from start to finish. This practice is known from Prakrit literature, gaudavaho being a typical example. Haribhadra's Nemināhacariya (Sk. Nemināthacarita), finished in 1150 A.D. has an extent of 8032 units of thirtytwo syllables (and is throughout composed in a mixed type of metre called raddā which consists of two units : a five-lined unit in the intricate mātrā (metre) with a four-lined unit in the dohā metre tacked on to it. This type does not appear to have any formal divisions. One Govinda preceded Haribhadra by at least three centuries. From citations in the Svayambhucchandas of Svayambhu and from other sources Govinda appears to have an epic on the life of Neminatha, in different varieties of the raddā metre.
Haribhadra's epic, as its title indicates, narrates the life of Neminatha, along with the famous story-cycle of the Jaina Hariyamsa. Like his predecessors, Syyambhu and Puspadanta and numerous others, Haribhadra has an ornate style, revealing a deep influence of the standardized conventions of the Sanskrit ornate kāvya in its later form.