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48
LILAVAI
daughter Saśikalā by Taksaka, one of the eight Nāgas, who assumed the form of her husband during his absence. Sasikala fearing a social scandal threw her son into the Narmadā in a covered earthen pot. A potter got the pot while floating in the river and took the babe to his house. The child grew up in the pot-maker's house and afterwards became the great Emperor Sälivähana.'
From all these legends and tales about Satavahana certain broad points are clear. He is uniformly associated with Pratisthāna. There is some mystery about his birth. At times he is made partial to Jainism, or a devotee of Mahälaksmi or Cämundā, or a performer of the horse-sacrifice: stripped of sectarian bias, it may be taken that he was pious, if not religious. His partiality for Prakrits was often ridiculed. He was a mighty monarch, quite lucky and aided by divine favour. He was just, brave and a worthy rival of Vikramāditya. He was assisted by commanders like Sadraka and Kharamukha. He was generous and a patron of learning. He was not averse to worldly pleasures. He is associated with eminent Jaina monks like Pädalipta, Kālakācārya etc. and (Buddhist?) teachers like Nagarjuna.
The name of Hāla has become memorable in Indian literature by his Sattasaī or Saptaśatakam, or more genuinely Gāhākoso (Sk. Gathakosah ), which is the earliest known anthology of Prakrit (or specifi Mähäraştri ) verses in gāthā metre mostly of erotic contents. Every verse is an unit by itself, a miniature sketch as it were in words, with well-chosen strokes of select and suggestive vocabulary. The present collection, put together from different recensions, contains a large number of such word-paintings. It depicts primarily village life in its various contexts : at home, on the field, through streets, in the garden, on the mountain slope,
1 A. Weber: Ueber das Saptaśatakam des Hala, Leipzig 1870; Das Sapt
aśatakam of Hala, Leipzig 1881; the Gathāsaptaśati, Kavyamala 21, 2nd ed., 1911; Ibid., 3rd ed , Bombay 1933. In addition, the following sources may also be consulted : Pischel: Grammatik der Prakrit-sprachen, Strassburg 1900, $ 13; Winternitz: Geschichte der Indischen Literatur, Leipzig 1922, pp. 97 ff., Keith: A History of Sanskrit Literature, Oxford 1928 pp. 223 ff., A. M. Ghatge : Maharastri Language and Literature, Journal of the University of Bombay, IV, 6, May 1936; A. N. Upadhye: Prakrit Literature, Encyclopedia of Literature I, New York 1946; V. V. Mirashi : The Original Name of the Gathasaptasati, a paper submitted to 13th All India Oriental Conference, Nagpur 1946; The Date of the Gathasaptasati, Indian Historical Quarterly, xxiii, 4, pp. 300-310; also Siddhabharati pp. 173-83, Hoshiarpur 1950.
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