Kansvaho

Author(s): Rama Paniwada, A N Upadhye
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas

Page 20

INTRODUCTION
opportunities only inspired him to work in new moulds and on novel models with the result that Rama Panivada has left to posterity a vast amount of literature varying in taste and varied in form.
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The works of Rama Panivada are found in three languages Sanskrit, Malayalam and Prakrit. To start with his Sanskrit works, he has composed four dramas: Candrikā,' a Vīthi; Lilavati, a Vithi; Madanaketucaritam," a Prahasana; and Sitārāghavam,10 a Nätaka. He wrote the following Kavyas : Viṣṇuvilāsakāvyam,11 which has eight cantos and deals with the first nine Avataras or incarnations of Visnu and on which he himself has written a svopajña-tikā called Viṣṇupriyā; Bhāgavatacampu,12 which is a campu-kavya dealing with the story of the Daśamaskandha of Bhāgavata, of which only seven Stabakas have been discovered and the story runs upto Mucukundamokṣa, and which is said to contain numerous Prakrit passages; Raghaviyam,13 with a svopajña commentary called Bālapāṭhyā which is the greatest of Panivada's works consisting of twenty
7 Candrika, a Vithi: Trivandrum Curator's Office Collection for Kollam 1093-94, p. 13, No. 96.
8 Lilavati, a Vithi, Ibidem No. 99.
-9 Madanaketucaritam: three Mss. in Paliyam Library, Cochin State; Govt. Oriental Mss. Library Madras R. No. 5163.
10 Sitärāghavam: Govt. 0. Mss. Library Madras D. No. 12721 and R. No. 5135; Trivandrum Palace Library Catalogue No. 1600; Trivandrum Curator's Office Collection for Kollam 1104, p. 27, No. 148.
11 Viṣṇuvilāsam: Govt. O. Mss. Library Madras No. 3442; Paliyam Library, Cochin State.
12 Not less than nine Bhāgavatacampus by different authors are mentioned by KRISHNAMACHARIAR in his Classical Sanskrit Literature. He does not, however, attribute one to Rāma Pāņivāda.
13 Raghaviyam Govt. O. Mss. Library Madras D. No. 11706 and R. No. 3397; Trivandrum Curator's Office Collection for Kollam 1104, p. 29, No. 162; Ibid. for Kollam 1087, p. 29, No. 282 also Paliyam Library Cochin State.