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Chapter X
Prakrit verses in Sahitya-Mimamsa
The Sāhitya-Mimāṁsā (SM) possibly of Ruyyaka, has been edited in the most care less manner as No. 114 of the Trivandrum Sanskrit Series' and has been published in a highly defective manner. This criticism of the edition, as a whole, is no doubt, true but it is much more true of its Prakrit text. The work quotes about one hundred Prakrit verses and quite a few Prakrit passages. Most of these are, as presented in this printed edition, hopelessly unintelligible. Dr. Raghvan aptly observes the work is later than Bhoja, Kuntaka and Kşemendra 2. In a footnote he adds : The work reproduces from all these three authors. If only this fact had been realised by the editor, the work would have been edited better'?. In my present study I have consulted Kuntaka's Vakrokti-Jivita (VJ), Bhoja's Sarasvati-Kanthabharana (SK) and Sprigara-Prakāśa' (SP); besides the Gāthasaptašati (GS), the Setubandha (Setu) and well known works on Sanskrit poetics; such as the Dhvanyaloka (DHV), the Locana commentary on it, the Kāryālamkāra of Rudrata with Namisādhu's Tippania, the Kavyaprakasa (KP) and the like. Keeping in view the context, in which these Prakrit verses occur and comparing parallel contexts in the various works on poetics and tracing wherever possible, their sources I have been able to restore most of them.
1) Uva niccala-nipphanda......
(p. 5) उअ णिच्चल-णिप्फंदा भिसिणीपत्तम्मि रेहइ बलाआ। .. णिम्मल-मरगअ-भाअण-परिट्ठिआ संखसुत्ति व्व ॥ (पश्य निश्चल-निष्पन्दा बिसिनीपत्रे राजते बलाका। AHS-A742-7144-9f7 ferrat Tazaafta 11)
-GS I. 4 In his Prakrit Grammar Hemacandra quotes this gåthi to illustrate his sätra 'ua paśya' 8.2.211
1) Bhoja's Srgārā Prakasa by Dr. Raghavan, Third Revised Enlarged Edition,
“Punarvasu ". 1, Sri Krishnapuram Street, Madres 600 014, 1978 (p. 92 and p.683). 2) Ibid. p. 93. 3) For restoring the Prakrit text the SK is highly useful and the badly printed Chapters
of the Sr Pra are partially useful. For the present study I do not think it necessary
to consult Ksemendra's works. 4) By consulting the MS of the SP at the Madras MSS Library it would be possi
ble, I believe, to restore the rest of the Prakrit verses and Prakrit passages.
