Operation In Search of Sanskrit Manuscripts in Mumbai Circle 1

Author(s): P Piterson
Publisher: Royal Asiatic Society

Page 26

IN THE BOMBAY CIRCLE.
The Sâmbapañchâsika is full of the Saiva doctrine of the oneness with the god he worships to which the true believer may attain: and it may therefore perhaps be assumed that the śri-Samba, in whose mouth the verses are put by the commentator as spoken by the god himself to make known his glory, is the name of a real writer.
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The new copy of the commentary on Ratnakara's epic, the Haravijaya, called the Vishama padoddy ota, No. 229, appears to differ from that obtained in Kashmir by Bühler in being somewhat more complete. It has the first four verses of the first sarga, and it ends, not in the middle of the forty-fifth sarga, but with the seventieth verse of the forty-sixth. The existence of two copies of this commentary ending at about the same part of the poem may be a coincidence. But the suggestion may also be hazarded that the explanation lies in the fact that Ratnakara did not complete his poem, and that Alaka, the author of the commentary,* was a contemporary and pupil of the author, whose work, unlike that of his master, was not finished by another hand. That the whole of the Haravijaya is not by Ratnakara is expressly asserted, I may point out, in the colophon to Bühler's copy of that work, where Ganapati is given as the name of the author of the sequel.
Commentary on Ratnakara's Haravijaya.
No. 165 is a small book, hitherto I believe unknown, by this same Ratnakara, with a commentary by śri Vallabhadeva, who describes himself as the son of the minister
(amatyavara) Ananda, and as the author of commentaries on the Siśupâlavadha and more than one other poem (śiśupâlavadhâdyanekakavyatîkakartṛi). There was already in the Bombay Government Collection a copy of this Vallabhadeva's commentary on the Sisupâlavadha: and a second copy was procured this year, No. 191. I have also procured his commentary on the Kumarasambhava, 36, in the colophon to which he styles himself, or is styled, Ânȧndadevâ
Ratnakara's Vakroktipañchâsika with the commentary of sri Vallabhadova.
"The Tika explains, as its title, Vishamapadoddyota, indicates, only particularly difficult words and passages. Its MS. begins with L. 5, and ends in the middle of Sarga XLV. Its author is Alaka, son of Rajanaka Jayanaka."— Kashmir Report, p. 45. My copy of the Vishamapadoddyota does not give the author's name. But the pandit from whom I obtained the book knew that it was the work of Alaka.