Sadyavatsa Kathanakam

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

Page 105

हर्षवर्धन - गणि-कृतं सद्रयवत्स - कथानकम्
९५
enemy forces, S. commissioned his sons for its defence. They put the hostile forces to rout. The poem ends with the happy reunion of Prabhuvatsa and Sadayavatsa.
9. From this summary, it will be seen that the episode and characters alluded to in the Srigaraprakāśa reference cited above, actually occur in this story.
In the Śṛngaraprakāśa reference the name of the Pithamarda is given as Dantaka. It is a wrong reading resulting from some scribe misreading tumtaka as damtaka. tumța is noted by Hemacandra at Deśināmamālā IV. 3 in the sense of 'having the hands cut off (chinna-hasta) (For New Indo-Aryan derivatives see R.L. Turner A Comparative Dictionary of Indo-Aryan Languages, entry no. 5698). In Bhima's text he is called thumṭhā, because Gujarati has the base-form thūṭhā corresponding to the Pk. form tumta (For thuttha-, thuntha etc. see Turner's dictonary, entry no. 5506). The Simhala prince is nicknamed nunṭaka because the gamblers had cut off his hands for not paying them the gambling dues (Sadayavatsavira-prabandha, vv. 436, 442).
10. The name of the hero appears in various forms in SVP: Sadayavatsa, Sudayavatsa, Sadayavaccha, Sudavaccha, Sadaya, Sudaya, Sudau (Sūdā) and Suddha. Sūdau (Sūda) occurs quite frequently. The form Sudda (Suddaya) is historically earlier than the others. It is found in some of the Prakrit Gāthās and Vastu stanzas in the SVP. Suddayavira (or *vaccha) changed to Sudayavira and finally became Sadayavira (or Sadayavatsa). As noted earlier, in the Samdeśarāsaka (v. 44) the tale is referred to as Sudavaccha (v.l. Sudayavaccha).
11. As noted previously (§ 3-4), Devadatta's poem was called Suddaya-vira-kaha. Similarly the title of Bhima's poem is Sadayavatsavira-prabandha. As will be seen from the summary given above, it is patently a tale of adventures and heroism. And in SVP. itself, the princess Lilavati introduces herself as the daughter