Prakritadhyaya

Author(s): Kramdishwar, Satyaranjan Banerjee, Dalsukh Malvania, H C Bhayani
Publisher: Prakrit Text Society Ahmedabad

Page 14

INTRODUCTION
chapters, are found. The hand-writting is clear and uniform with some topographical poouliarities common to a Bengali script. The manuscript is complete, but its condition is not good, as the edges of the manuscript are spoiled and torn ; and here and there some repairs have been made by pasting paper. The manuscript bears the date of its writing; but it is damaged on one numerical point, thus creating some lacunae in the matter of fixing the date of writing of the manuscript. At the end, it gives the Saka era 16 [?] 8: of the four digits the third from the left (which I have put in the square bracket) is illegible, although only a left-side scrap of Bengali zero is visible, from which I conjecture that the digit might be zero. Whatever may be the number, it is pretty certain that of all the manuscripts consulted by me, it is the oldest, and thus, it helps us in correcting and improving some readings of the text. Out of the 25 folios, the Präkrit portion covers upto the 20th folio, while the remaining portions are for the metres and rhetorios. It is written on both sides of the folio, the first and the last pages being filled up with some lines quoted from the works of Kalidāsa, Bhatti and others. It has the following chapterdivisions :• 1b-3a=The First chapter=Svara-kāryam nivrttam.
34-8a = The Second chapter=Consonants with conjuncts. 8a-11b= The Third chapter=Declension. 11b15a=The Fourth chapter=Conjugation (with Dhāt vādeśa). 158 - 208=The Fifth chapter=Apabhramsa.
Excepting the first there is no chapter-mark. It begins with "....... SY H7 f81a127' and ends with the following :
विद्यातपोऽर्थी वादीन्द्रः पूर्वग्रामी द्विजः कविः।
चक्रपाणिसुतो ज्यायान् नसासो श्रीपतेः कृती। इति वादीन्द्र-चक्रचूडामणि-महापण्डित-श्रीक्रमदीश्वरकृतौ संक्षिप्तसारे रसवत्यां वृत्तौ संधि-पादादिना प्राकृतान्तेन द्वितीयोऽध्यायः ।। गुरुचरणेभ्यो नमः। श्रीरस्तु मयि लेखके सदा। यथा दृष्टो यो दि। श्रीरामगोपाल देवशर्मणो लिपिरियं gfF311 71286 (0)51 21a: Fatatal sitout lll One interesting thing that appears from the colophon is that it has been copied from the book of Srī Rāmagopala Devašarmā; but who this Rāmagopāla was, is very difficult to ascertain now-a-days.