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Lilavai: A Critical Appreciation
Lilāvai was composed at a time when prose romances in Sanskrit like those written by Bāna and others were popular. The author of Lilāvai wrote his work in Mahārāştri Prakrit with a desire partly to imitate those Sanskrit works and partly to excel them.
The structure of Lilāva, like that of Kādambari, is quite complex. The story is presented in a box-within-box' type of construction. After the customary invocation and a brief account of his family, the poet narrates the main story to his wife which is the outer box (verses 43-1333). Vijayānanda, the faithful minister of King Sālāhana, the hero, narrates a large bulk of this story to his master, describing his experiences in his first expedition against the king of Simhala (146-920) and a second one to meet the heroine at the king's behest (947-997). Within Vijayānanda's narration, Kuvalayāvalı becomes the narrator of the life-story of Mahanumati (271-726) and of Līlāvati (731-887) to Vijayānanda. She also tells him her own account (579-665) which forms the innermost casket in the construction. All these biographies and autobiographies of the main characters are properly connected with each other "stage after stage, with various threads of the story......duly joined in the concluding portion of the poem”. The continuous narration, without any divisions into chapters or cantos, is quite racy and the interest of the reader is sustained throughout, except where longish descriptions slow down the action in the plot towards the denoument which is Lilavati's marriage with king Sālāhana. There is, however, one loose joint in the plot. The necklace which Mahānumati presented to Mādhavānila came to king Sālāhana's treasury after the defeat of Viravahaņa, the king of Malaya. Is this the same as the Malaya king Malayānila, the father of Madhavānila ? The commentator thinks so. But the necklace thrown away by the Nāgas (1053) while abducting Mādhavānila could not possibly come back to
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