Book Title: Kuvalayamala Part 2
Author(s): Udyotansuri, A N Upadhye
Publisher: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan

View full book text
Previous | Next

Page 152
________________ A CULTURAL NOTE ON THE KUVALAYAMALA OF UDDYOTANASURI Ву [The Late ] Dr. V. S. AGRAWALA' The Kuvalayamālā is a Prākrit Campū written by Uddyotanasūri (779 A.D.). It is full of cultural material which gains in value because of the firm date of its composition. It had long been known in Mss. form. It has been edited and printed by Dr. A. N. UPADHYE who has very kindly invited me to make a study of the text from the cultural point of view. Obviously the material belongs to the post-Harsha period when the three great empires of the Gurjara Pratihāra in the North, Rāshtrakūtas in the Deccan and Pālas in the Eastern India had been established. That played a magnificent role in the glorious rehabilitations of art, literature, philosophy, culture and commerce. Uddyotanasūri was a writer of a very keen observation gifted with the same pictorial memory as Bāna; and his knowledge of men and matters was of a wide character as shown by the description of the Kuvalayamālā. The Campū opens with salutations to the great Tirthamkaras on the occasion of whose birth even the gods take part in the great festival, clapping their hands with bejewelled bracelets (maņi-valaya, 1.2). The personified beauty mentioned as māhava-sirī, gimha-lacchi, pāüsa-sirī, saraya-lacchi and hemamta-siri is full of beautiful expression not found elsewhere (1.9-14). There is a reference to gold of highest purity (jacca-suvanna=jātya-suvarna, 2.2). Whatever impurity or dross was contained in the gold brought to the goldsmith was removed by the latter by subjecting it to different processes of testing it on the touch-stone (kasa), cutting (cheda), heating under regulated fire (tāva), beating out into flat sheets (tādana), filing the sheets and the same process of beating it into a different shape, giving it a shape of round bar and dividing into several parts for final testing (vihadaņa). The purest gold (jacca-suvaņņa) The late lamented Dr. VASUDEV SHARAN AGRAWALA, in whom I had an intimate friend and academic associate for over thirty years, was a versatile Indologist; and his Cultural Study of the Harşacarita, published by the Bihār Rashtrabhāstā Parishad (Patna 1953), in Hindi, has proved a pioneer study and a model in the field for a number of subsequent monographs. As he had always a keen eye for the cultural data, he was very much attracted by the Kuvalayamālā of Uddyotana. I earnestly requested him, therefore, to spare some time to study the Kuvalayamālā and shed some light on its cultural aspects. Despite ill health, he sent these notes to me, which are of immense value for a student of cultural history of medieval India, especially in its western parts. The Notes were dictated by him, and what reached my hands was the first typed draft. Due to indifferent health, he could not spend more time on their revision. I retyped them for the Press. If some different opinions are there between my views and these Notes, I should submit that we had no occasion to discuss them; and the scholars may take them for what they are. My sincere thanks are due to the departed soul. What pains me, however, is that Dr. AGRAWALA did not live to see these Notes in print (a.n.u.). Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

Loading...

Page Navigation
1 ... 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368