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Prakrit Verses in Sanskrit Works on Poetics
bestow high praise on it. And if imitation is an index of popularity we have its imitation in Sanskrit in Govardhana's Aryāsaptaśati which is certainly modelled on Hala's Gathasaptaśati.
The work is divided, as is clear from the title, into seven satakas, centuries, collections of hundred gåthås each, which however differ very much in various MSS. This anthology is mostly erotic. Each gātha presents a miniature picture complete in itself. These găthâs mainly depict village life and the peasantry. The family life of the lower strata of the society is portrayed in its various contexts, but the erotic aspect dominates. These găthas are not specimens of ancient songs of Indians dealing with the joys and sorrows of their lives but only artistic poems closely modelled on them. Next to the gāthas portraying love in its various aspects we have some giving pictures of nature. We also get a few glimpses of the town and court life as some of the gāthas are composed by kings and their court poets. The anthology is rich in maxims and popular sayings and sheds light on the customs and conventions prevalent in those times. There are allusions to divine beings like Siva, Părvatī, Gaurī, Ganapati, Vişņu, Lakşmi, etc and to mythological events from the epics. The references to Vindhya, Sahya and Godā indicate that the locality of the composition of the majority of these gathās, is the Deccan, particularly Māhārāșțra.26
(b) Rāvanavijaya (now lost) : Although this kävya is ranked by Bhoja, and after him, by Hemacandra, as high as Harivijaya and Setubandha, nothing is known about its author or its contents beyond a solitary citation27 by Bhoja in his Srigāraprakāśa and is cited by Hemacandra in his Kavyānusasana.
(c) Sarvasena's Harivijaya28 (now lost) : Sarvasena composed, his Harivijaya in
26) Vide : A.M. Ghatage : Māhārastri Language and Literature Journal of the
University of Bombay, IV, part 6 (pp 19-70) May 1936; Keith: A History
of Sanskrit Literature, Oxford 1928, pp 223 ff.; 27) A.N. Upadhye : Prakrit Literature, Encyclopedia of Literature I, New York 1946. 28) For a detailed study of this work vide my paper: “The Harivijaya of Sarvasena"
first published in the Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (Diamond Jubilee Volume), pp. 691-710 and now included in Studies In Sanskrit Sahitya-Sastra (pp. 162-179), published by B.L. Institute of Indology, Patan (North Gujarat) PIN : 384 266
