________________
€CXXXII
Kavyanusatana
So here I may pause for a while to put before the student some of the material which will help his historical imagination draw, at least in outline, the picture of this city from which, so to say, radiated the glory of the Gurjara Empire.
We are fortunate in possessing some very good contemporary descriptions of the city. The student will find that the two descriptions of Aşahillapura from the pen of Hemachandra himself in his two Dvyásrayas -Samskīta and Prākşta-are, in spite of poetic egaggerations and embellishments, sufficiently realistic to guide his historical imagination. The Prākrta description in the Ku. Pra. of Somaprabha - a junior contemporary of Kumāra pāla is also interesting. The inscription of the General Kesava of Dadhipadra District gives in one verse a characteristic description of Aşahillapura. Of later descriptions the one in the Kīrttikaumudi of Someşvara - the friend of Vastupāla-is very fine and gives us an idea of the city as it must have impressed the poet in the last days of its glory.
As to the history of the place, up till now it was held by scholars that it began with the founding of Aşahillapura by Vanarāja in V. S. 802 - A. D. 746. But the V. T. K. of Jinaprabha edited and published by Muni Jinavijaya gives a tradition which enables us to trace its history three - hundred years prior to Vanarāja. From it, + it becomes clear that
+ Jipaprabhasūri in the twenty-sixth Kalpa of his V.T.K. while narrating an early tradition about the building of the temple of Arishtanemi in Anahillapura incidentally gives some interesting details about the earlier history of the place before the time of Vanarāja. He also enumerates the names of the kings who ruled in the city from Vaparāja to Allauadīna
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
