Kurmastakadvyam

Author(s): Bhojdev Maharaj
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 14

Preface
We are happy to present this first English translation of the Kūrmaśatakadvayam - two inscribed Prakrit Satakas on Kūrma, the Tortoise who supports the Earth - attributed to the renowned scholar-emperor Bhojadeva of Malwa in Central India (c. AD 1000-55). We reproduce here the Prakrit text of the two poems originally edited by Prof. R. Pischel, in the Epigraphia Indica, Volume VIII, published by the Archaeological Survey of India in 1905-06. We have carried out corrections in the text of the two Satakas, as per Prof. Pischel's directions in his footnotes. We thank the Archaeological Survey of India for permission to print the Prakrit text.
In the inscription, the first poem is entitled Avani-Kürma Sataka, while the second one is not given any name. We call this monograph “Kūrmaśatakadvayam', two Śatakas on Kūrma.
We express our deep gratitude to the late Professor Harivallabh Bhayani who first drew our attention to these two inscribed poems on Kūrma. We are indebted to Prof. M. A. Dhaky for going through the Introduction and making valuable suggestions. We are grateful to Dr. Jitendra B. Shah for publishing this monograph. We warmly thank Ms. Tulsi Vatsal for editing the Introduction and going through the translation of the poems.
We hope that these 11th century poems on Kūrma, representing a rare extant example of the inscribed poetry in India, will be of interest to Indologists, historians, students of mythology as well as to lovers of the tortoise, the animal who is a model of self-control and restraint, a much desired ideal in this terrorstricken world.
Though technically the word "turtle" (sea or freshwater reptile) rather than "tortoise" (land or freshwater reptile) would perhaps be more apt in the context of some Indian myths, we have continued to use the traditional translation of kūrma and kacchapa as "tortoise" throughout the text.