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Observations on some Variants in Harşacarita
225
altare (P. 171): when the stars, grey like the pick of a sparrow, that looked like the bits of the king's bones, were being ferried by the morning. The import of the expression seems to be that as the burnt up bones of the dead are collected ou the third or fourth day in the morning and are carried to holy rivers like the Ganges and are thrown in them, the stars dim in the morning twilight were ferried by the morning to the other side of the sky which looked like a vast lake. The reading s lag of some Mss. has rightly been preferred by Cowell and Thomas to #. Bones are first gathered and then placed in a jar to be carried for ceremonial immersion in lakes or rivers. This is the natural sequence of the ceremony. But if we take the reading in the text, we have first a reference to the carrying of the bones and then to the jars. It inveris the natural order and makes the bonafides of the reading # A1118 extremely doubtful.
The phrase सुदूरप्रसारितेन संकल्पयन्निव सर्वदुःखानि दीर्पण दोर्दण्डेन गृहीत्वा कण्ठे (P. 177), meant to express the poignancy of Rajyavardhana's anguish at the death of his father, hardly yields any sease. The prince could not have resolved upon sorrows with his arms even as he clasped his younger brother to b»soin. This illogical interpretation is evidently the result of a hopeless reading. The variant artida, preserved in some codices, can be the only sensible reading in the context. Rājyavardhana, overwhelmed with grief as he was stretched out his arms to embrace Harsa. The poet fancies that in doing so he was grasping all the soi rows in the world. The narration of his father's illness and death, that would natu. rally follow his meeting with Harșa, was sure to exacerbate his grief.
Simhanāda's diatribe against Lakso i preceding his urging Harsa into action against the ruler of Gauda, is distinguished by a crisp dictum : feral falar 37-9a1az: 19€ f ui: (P. 190). This is a strange way to run down the goddess of wealth. To say that the faults of Lakşmi such as blindness are faults pertaining to the lotus, hardly cuts ice. Laksmi is not kaown to share with the lotus any such fault (andhatā). We expect a better phraseology to yield a neat sense. This is what is found in feel fe a9-aa129: Figar far, the variant reading met with in a set of codices. The faults of Lakso i like 719FeaT, P:rtain to the lotuses. Lakşmi dwells in lotus, therefore the faults of the lotuses stick to her and consequently she deceives other people. Fai impregnated with
Jes Sambodhi XI-29
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