Sambodhi 1978 Vol 07

Author(s): Dalsukh Malvania, H C Bhayani, Nagin J Shah
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 87

Latiya Apabhramia
सर समुद घरभरहि डिदह डिट डाह करक्कहि । कमठ पिट्ठ कलमलाहि पहुमि महि प्रलय पलहि ॥
जयचंद पयानो संभरत फुनि ब्रहमंड विछुट्टिय ।
मम चलहि म चहि मम चलि म चलि चलहि त प्रलय पलडिहय ||
The reconstructed stanza can be roughly translated as follows: When you, O Jayacamda, even just think of marching (against some ememy), then, frightened (by the pressure and commotion to be imminently generated from the enormous army), the huge guardian elephants of the directions bump against one another; huge mountains topple down: all occeans, forests and mountains (?) get pulverized;--is ground to dust (?); the fang of the Boar (carrying the Earth) crackles; the back of the Tortoise make crumbling noises; the serpent Seşa cannot stir: the whole universe might fall apart. .O Himalaya, do not become shaky, do remain steadfast, otherwise the Earth itself would become topsyturvy.
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The date of the Sahityamīmāmsa is uncertain. Sambasiva Sastri believes it to be the work of Mankhuka and places it in the 12th century. Raghavan shows that it has borrowed from Bhoja, Kuntaka and Kṣemendra. There are two other works called Sahityamimämsd dated in the fifteenth century or thereabout. Thus it turns out that two years prior to Jinavijaya's publication of the very striking evidence from the Jain Prabandhas, we had before us, in published form, a Sanskrit work on poetics that contained a citation deriving from PR. But due to the totally obscure character of the passage, nobody paid the slightest attention to it.
(3)
We may now point out some far reaching implications of the present unexpected discovery.
1. Once again the existence of a famous verse composition on the life and exploits of Prthviraja Cahuāna and Jayacanda Ratthauda at a fairly early date is demonstrated.
2, The language of the work was Late Apabhramsa influenced by spoken idioms of the western region. What is most significant is the fact that from the Sahityamimaksā we get a definite designation of the language of PR. There it is called Latiya Apabhramsa.
The regional element in the standard literary Apabhramsa had sumed further significance so that the earlier three-fold classification into Nagara, Upangara and Vracada was superceded, prior to Bhoja, by a classification of greater delicacy that subsumed the regional distinction under