________________
[7] Pañcadaṇḍātapatra-prabandha by Ram acandrasuri of the Purnimagaccha [ 1490 V. S. 1434 A.D.]. This Prabandha in Sanskrit verse is edited and published by Pt. Hiralala Hamsarāja of Jamanagar in 1912 A.D. under the title Pañcadandatmakam Vikramacaritram. The name of the author and the date of composition are missing in the printed text; but the same are supplied by the Mss. of the work preserved in the Oriental Institute, Baroda and Sri Hemacandrācārya Jaina Jñanamandira, Patana. Mss. of this work are also available at the Anup Sanskrit Library, Bikaner, the L. D. Institute of Indology, Ahmedabad and Amera Sastrabhaṇḍāra, Jaipur. For our purpose OI Ms. no. 211I is utilized. The Ms. comprises 69 folios. The writing is mostly in Prsthamātrās. It is dated 1556 V. S. = 1500 A.D.
58
[8] Vikramaditya-Pañcadandacchatra-caritra
by Vijaya kusala [ 16th cent. A.D.]. A Ms. of this Sanskrit prose work is preserved in the Oriental Institute, Baroda as no. 24271, which is referred to for our purpose. It consists of 19 folios and is dated 1777 V. S. 1721 A.D. The author follows here the story narrated by Ramacandrasuri (our no. 7). Even the wording is very similar to that of no. 7, and often the same. The author makes a brief but frank statement to this effect: "Rāmacandrasűrikṛtād uddharitam".
[9] Vikramaditya-pañcadanḍa-prabandha by an unknown author [ 16th cent. A.D. J. A Ms. of this work in Sanskrit prose is preserved in the Oriental Institute, Baroda as no. 14273, which is referred to for our purpose. It has 7 folios in all.
Over and above these, we get a number of versions of this story in Old Gujarati-Rajasthani as well. It may be pointed out that this story is purely a folk-tale and it need not be considered as a 'prabandha' in the true sense of the term. Moreover, none of the above-mentioned versions is found in a Prabandha-work. As such it has no historical importance whatsoever. A comparative study of the same will, therefore, be out of place here. Those readers who are interested in it may refer with advantage to "A Critical Edition of Pañcadanda-ni Varta of An Unknown Gujarati Prose-Writer (Before 1682 A.D.) by the present editor's learned colleague Dr. S. D. Parekh. is his Ph.D. Thesis in Gujarati (June 1961), wherein he has also presented a nice" comparative study of literary works on the same theme in Sanskrit and Gujarati" on pages 18-255. A typed copy of the thesis is available for reference in the University Library, Baroda.
It
"
Jain Education International
42
It will suffice for our purpose to state that a close study of all these
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
