________________
11?
a contemporary of the victorious king, as, to be more accurate, his senior contemporary.
8. KOMĀRIRĀŅĀ-PRABANDHA
The story of Kumārirán a ka, king of the city of Kid ima nkodi, on the face of it, does not seem to have any bearing on history. There is a reference therein to a lake called Phūtelău (lit. : broken') stated to be situated near Canda sa má (mod. Căņa s mā in North Gujarāta), which was constructed by a wealthy trader of that place, whose defiance of trust resulted in the breaking forth of the lake and the water flowing away from it. A lake near the village named Rūp a pura, two miles away from Cāņas mā, is still called Bandhelun (lit. : bound') which is contrary to the name given here. One would be inclined, therefore, to believe that the Phütelău or broken lake was repaired or reconstructed afterwards and as such it was called Bandhelum or bound as contrasted to the tanks which do not possess any built border or steps for going down into them.
The reference here to the lake Sahasralinga and the foreigner's hermitage (deśāntarakuți) does not appear to have any significance from the historical point of view.
9. SRIMĀTĀ-PRABANDHAY
This prabandha commences with the story of king Lakh a ņa se na of La k han å vati and his minister Umā patisridhara. This story also occurs elsewhere, of course with differences, as already noted in the chapter on Relation With Other Prabandha-Works. This L a khan asena is identified with king Lakşmaņa sena of the Sena dynasty of Bengal, who, though assigned different dates by different scholars, appears to have reigned from 1179-1206 A.D. As a powerful contemporary of Jayacandra of Vārāṇasi (1170-1194 A.D.), he seems to have distinguished
A similar story is found in the Kaumärika-khanda of the MaheśvaraBhanda of the Skandapurāna; Ka u mārikā, however, has the face of a goat and not that of a monkey which Srimā tā is stated here to be possessing, Readers interested may refer to Dr. R. N. Mehta's 'Kaumārikā-khandaA study', JMSU, XIV. 1, pp. 39-48.
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
