Ritthnemichariyam Part 2

Author(s): Swayambhudev, Ramnish Tomar, Dalsukh Malvania, H C Bhayani
Publisher: Prakrit Text Society Ahmedabad

Page 14

13
72. 15. 5-6, the manuscript gives them respectively under the names of Maūradeva and Rajjautta. The alternative of verbatim borrowing in the Paumacariya from others is highly implausible, if we attach any weight to the positions of these passages in the Paumacariya (one is the opening stanza of the 77th Sandhi, while the other two figure in the midst of a Kadavaka), and to high calibre of Svaymbhủ as an epic poet. In this connection it is also significant that in two cases the gloss in the manuscript of the Sc. disagrees with the ascriptions of the MS. For Sc. I 3.1 cited under the name of Vijjā, the gloss gives the name of Divāara and for Sc. I 38.1 ascribed to Suddhakai, the gloss gives Niuņa.
These considerations, coupled with the fact that Caturmukha bas been acknowledged by Svayambhū as pioneer in the field of Apabhraṁsa epic, make it very likely that Sc. VI. 50.1, 52.1 and 68.1 are derived from Caturmukha's Rāmāyaṇa.
(7) There is one more stanza quoted in another work which appears in all likelihood to be taken from Caturmukh'as Rāmāyaņa. To illustrate a rule of Apabhramśa grammar, Hemacandra cites under Siddhahema 8 4 331 the following stanza :
Dahamuhu bhuvana-bhayamkaru, tosiya-Samkaru,
niggau raha-vari cadiau I Caumuhu Chammuhu jhàivi, ekkahhi läivi,
nāvai, daivem ghadiau ll Translation : “Having propitated Sarkara, Rāvana mounted an excellent chariot and started—a terror to the world : It appeared that Fate had concentrated its mind on the conceptions of the four-faced Brahmā and the six-faced Kārttikeya, amalgamated them and created the ten-faced Rāvana !' From the reference in the stanza to Rāvana worshipping Sañkara, it follows that it is taken from some Brahmanical epic on the life-history of Rāma. With what the Srågāraprakāśa tells us about Caturmukha's practice of punningly marking his poems with his own name as well as the name of Brahmā, it is quite tempting to read the name of the poet Caturmukha in the beginning of the second half of this stanza.