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Gahasaitasai
In manner of undoing the hardest known knot, Did my lover free my arms in aident embrace! Then I too in willing feat pulled out my breasts So very deeply dug in his wide warm chest!
(30)
Asei pariaņam parivattamtta pahiajaão / nitthamuvvattanavaliahatthamuhalo valaasaddo // (III-83)
The traveller's wife, quite pale and ematiated
Lies on the bed as does a hopeless patient; But the sound of bracelets from a casual side-turn Brings a beam of hope on the attendants' faces !
Notes and References
This paper is presented here in memory of A. Webers' Das Saptasatakam des Hala (Leipzig, 1881) marking its centenary year of publication.
6i
The names of all the authors of these verses are not known. The later commentaries on this anthology, however, mention their names for each separate couplet. But these commentaries differ considerably about these names and, hence, are not reliable.
A.Weber finds that only 430 gahas occur in all the six recensions of the Gāhāsattasat. Hence these gähäs may have been the contents of the Gāhākoso.
3 Each gaha being independent and a complete whole, there was ample scope for interpolations. And when the number of the gahas rose to 700, the anthology was called Sattasai. Later, this number rose to nearly 1,000. Yet the anthology is popularly known as Gahasattasa; (Gāthāsaptasati).
4 Vide Introduction to the Hindi Gāthāsaptasati by Narmadeshwar Chaturvedi, Chowkhamba Vidyabhavan Sanskrit Series. No. 55, pp.13-16.
5 Edited by Pandit Kedarnath and Vasudev, Bombay, 1911.
6 Das Saptasatakam des Hala, Leipzig, 1881.
7 The gahas of the Gahakoso, which claim great antiquity, can be said to have been composed by folk-poets, and the later ones by the classical poets after the folk pattern.
8 (i) The only authorised translation into English, published by the University of Calcutta, 1959,
Jain Education International
(ii) After this paper was completed, I learnt that two more editions. the Gahasattasal have just come out one from Ahmedabad (Prakrit Text Society) and another from Udaipur.
9 Bibliotheca Indica, No.295, The Asiatic Society, Calcutta, 1971.
10 Then I also translated them into Kannada prose.
11 The Poet-translators' Workshop at Bhopal, organized by the National Sahitya Academy, declared that such translation is really effective: News item, The Times of India, 13-9-1976,
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