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their initial close relationship with the Ksatriyas later turned into hostiliy, their mastery over peculiar sciences like the sanjivani vidya, as also on archery. "Thus the Bhargavas are pictured as sages, domineering, arrogant, unbending, and revengeful in nature. Simultaneously they are shown to be omniscient, omnipotent and supermen. ... Besides these qualities they are well known as the promulgator of Dharma and Nitiśastra... The tendency of deification of Bhrgu which originates in the Vedas reaches its final stage in the present versions of the Puranas." (p. 181)
"
The book contains some unfortunate lapses which could have been easily avoided. On p. 4 we find bhṛgave mentioned as the plural form. On p. 53, Finding the demons unarmed" is followed by the word pragṛhitayudha, which means just the opposite. On p. 78 the name of the lake is given as Brahmasara instead of Brahmasaras (Mbh. 13. 96. 7). It is difficult to understand what the authoress means when she says: "It appears that the descendants of Bhargava Cyavana unanimously take Ksatriya wives. " (p. 178). Equally unhappy is the sentence... and Nārāyaṇa incarnates to restore the fallen dharma" (p. 181).
A HISTORY OF CLASSICAL SANSKRIT POETRY, SANSKRITPALI-PRAKRIT: by Siegfried Lienhard, published by Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden, 1984, pp. 307.
The present volume makes fascicle I of Vol. III of A History of Indian Literature' edited by Jan Gonda.
M. A. Mehendale
"The poetry presented here is that poetry which is partly epic, partly lyrical. It is either written. entirely in verse, entirely in prose or alternates between verse and prose. Formally it falls into two main categories: poetry of the major form (mahäkävya ), which is almost always sub-divided into sections, and poetry of the minor form (laghukävya ), whose important relative is single stanza and short poems" (p. 2). In his concluding remarks (p. 273), the author notes that he has excluded from his treatment classical
1 The expressions that actually occur in the Puranic texts are myastabastrah, tyaktaia
strā.
49 [Annals BQRI]
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