Sagardatt and Lalitang Rasaka

Author(s): Shantisuri , Ishwarsuri, Shilchandrasuri, H C Bhayani
Publisher: Kalikal Sarvagya Shri Hemchandracharya Navam Janmashatabdi Smruti Sanskar Shikshannidhi Ahmedabad

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Works on the Story of Lalitānga The Story of Lalitāmga is one of the several versions of the taletype designated as The Two Travellers (Type 613), which has a long history of more than fifteen hundred years and is found in Buddhist, Jain and Hindu literatures of India and in Arabian and European medieval literary works. The general line of development of the oral versins was worked out by R. Christiansen (The Tale of the Two Travellers or The Blinded Man. F.F. Comnitications No. 24, 1916). S. Thompson has treated this tale-type in The Folktale, p. 80-81.
In the Jain tradition one version we find in śāntisūri's Puhavicamdacariya written in 1105 A.C. There it is given as an illustrative tale in the account of the fifth bhava of Prthvicandra. Dhana and Dharana were two brothers. Dhana was religious-minded, while Dharana was evil-minded and crafty. The latter gets the former involved in a debate about the superiority of Dharma or Adharma, and managing to defeat him blinds him as per condition of the debate. Latefon when Dhana gets miraculously cured and achieves great success and fame, Dharana tries to ruin Dhana by spreading scandals, but is himself killed in a plot he had laid. (Sec H.C. Bhyani, Lokkathā-nā Mūļ ane Ku!.. 1990, p. 85-87).
Again this tale-type is also familiar from Medieval Gujarati pocms like the Dharmabuddhi-räsa, Dharma-Parikṣā-rāsa (IGK. 7, p. 96).
Two other Jain writers in Middle Gujarati occupied themselves with the life of Lalitamga, as we know froin the Jain Gurjar Kavio : Kramākalasa of Agama Gaccha wrote Lalitāmgakumāra-rāsa in V.S. 1553 (=1497 A.C.) at Udayapura (JGK. revised edition, I, p. 201; no. 294). Dänvijaya of the Tapa Gaccha wrote Lalitāmga-rāsa in V.S. 1761 (=1705 A.C.) at Jambusara. It has 27 Dhālas and 689 verses. The author says that his source was the biography given by Bhāvadevasūri in the first Sarga of his Pārsvanāthacaritra (IGK., 5, p. 162-163, no. 3657).
Kșāmākalasa's Lalitāmgakumāra-räsa was edited and published by K. Sheth and D. Shal in 1982. For the summary see Madhyakālina Gujarāti Kathākosa, ed. H. C. Bhayani, 1997, p. 251-252.