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vi
PAUMACARIU
and, along with the first part, I hope to place them in the form of the second part of that work in the hands of the learned readers of the Singhi Jain Series.
The present work of Svayambhū has already attracted attention of several scholars and critics in Hindi and Gujarati. For instance in his Apabhramsa selections called 'Apabhramsa-pāțhāvali' the Gujaratī scholar Prof. M. C. Modi has included a few Sandhis from both the epics of Svayambhū. Similarly the famous Buddhist scholar and Hindi author Pandit Rahula Samkrityayana has given a prominent place to the Paümacariu of Svayambhū and has included several Sandhis from it in the first volume of his anthology of Hindi poetry called Hindi Kavya Dhārā. In 1943 during his halt at Bombay prior to his departure to Russia, Pandit Samkrityayana stayed with me at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan for about a couple of months and at that time he had an occasion to examine the good collection of Apabhramsa literature that was with me. He was quite impressed with it and took down numerous excerpts, notes, etc., which material he utilized in preparing the first volume of Hindi Kavya Dhārā (Hindi Poetic Anthology) intended to serve as a sort of convenient Apabhramsa reader for the Hindi students. In his introductory remarks to that work my learned friend Rahula Samkrityayana has made certain observations which are worthy of note for all students of this subject. He says: " ET Trafaret कविताके पाँचों युगोंके जितने कवियोंको हमने यहाँ संग्रहीत किया है, उनमें यह निस्संकोच कहा जा सकता है, कि स्वयंभू सब से बडा कवि है। वस्तुतः वह भारतके एक दर्जन अमर कवियोंमेंसे एक था। आश्चर्य और क्रोध दोनों होता है कि लोगोंने कैसे ऐसे महान कवि को भुला देना चाहा। (It can be said without hesitation that not only among the poets of this-i.e. the first-period, but among those of all the five periods of Hindi poetry represented in the present anthology, Svayambhū was the greatest. In fact he was one of the dozen immortal poets of India. It is a matter of wonder and indignation that people could forget such a great poet.)
As Mahästhavira Pandit Rahula Samkrityayana has prepared his selections with a view to unfold rise and development of Hindi, we can quite understand why he regards Svayambhū as the leading pioneer among Hindi poets. Really speaking Svayambhū was the chief literary ancestor of Apabhramśa poets. Apabhramśa being the source of early as well as modern forms of New Indo-Aryan languages like Marathi, Hindi, Gujarati, Rajasthani, Bengali, Oriya, Assamese, Panjabi, etc., Svayambhu's poetry can be looked upon with equal propriety as the forerunner of Hindi poetry as that of the poetry of other vernaculars like Gujarati, Marathi, Rajasthani, Bengali, etc. Accordingly Svayambhu's work would prove very much useful to all students of New Indo-Aryan languages also.
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