Sadyavatsa Kathanakam

Author(s): Pritam Singhvi
Publisher: Parshwa International Shaikshanik aur Shodhnishth Pratishthan

Page 100

हर्षवर्धन-गणि-कृतं सदयवत्स- कथानकम्
Here Pṛthvivatsa and Sūdravatsa are mentioned as famous past rulers of Dhārā. In the Old Gujarati version of the tale, the names of the hero and his father are given in various forms, but Suddavaccha and Pahuvaccha (i.e. Śūdravatsa and Prabhuvatsa) are the earliest. This point is discussed further below. Secondly, Suddavaecha in that poem marries a princess of Dhārā and later on becomes the ruler of that city.
९०
6. Thus two Apabhramsa poets of the eleventh century, who lived in Dhārā, are quite familiar with the story of Sudravatsa and one of them actually wrote a narrative poem having a plot based on that story. They flourished in the time of king Bhoja, who alludes in his Śṛngaraprakāśa to some characters of that story. All these references point to the great popularity of this tale in the Malwa region in the tenth and eleventh century, and this is selfexplanatory, in view of the fact (as we shall see) that the hero was a prince of Ujjayini and Dhārā. The characters alluded to in Bhoja's reference noted at the beginning of this paper, viz. Dantaka (?), Śūdravatsa and Kāmasenā, actually figure in the Sadayavatsaviraprabandha of Bhima, and the episode itself mentioned in the Śṛigāra-prakāśa can be exactly identified in that work.
7. The Sadayavatsa-Vira-Prabandha (further here referred to as SVP) was composed c. 1400 A.D.9. Regarding the extent of the text there is considerable variation among the manuscripts. The work has round about seven hundred verses (730 if we go by the printed text). The work is mostly composed in the Caupai and Duha metres, but numerous other metres also are used for variation, etc. Besides there are some thirty-four Gāthās in Prakrit. It is obvious that at least some of these Gāthās were borrowed from some early-Prakrit version of the tale, as mostly they repeat in short what is said in the preceding Old Gujarati verses1o.
The tale narrates the loves and adventures of Sudavaccha, who was a Prince of Ujjayini and son-in-law of Śālivāhana, the