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guess-work, Prof. Hindiqui inspite of his advanced age and failing health has spared no pains in making available profuse extracts from various unpublished commentaries, thereby presenting very valuable data for the exegetical and textual history of the Setubandha, His translation is based on a critical consideration of the numerous alternatives offered by the vast and varied exegetical materials. His notes to the translation are sure to prove a feast for the students of Prakrit.
The elaborate Introduction deals with all the important aspects of the poem like authorship', date, source and influence, form, cultural and geographical background, language, metre, literary worth, commentarial tradition and textual recensions. The detailed outline of the contents of the poem, spotlighting passages of significance, will be found very useful. The problem of exactly characterizing the Prakrit of the Setu. bandha is highly complicated. What features were considered in the indigenous grammatical tradition as characteristic (exclusive or commonly shared by other literary Prakrits) for Mahārāṣṭri; what was the relationship of the stylized literary Mahārāṣṭri with the colocquial speech of the Maharaṣṭra region during the early centuries of the Christian era; what recension or recensions of the Setubandha provided basis for the rules and observations of the Prakrit grammarians; which of the readings found in different commentaries and Alamkāra works are old and original: such problems shall have to be tackled before we can arrive at tenable conclusions in this regard. In the section on the language of the Setubandha Prof.
1. One can form some idea as to how much Pravarasena had become legendary by the time of later commentaries, by noting the fact that Pravarasena's family name "Vākāṭaka' was corrupted beyond recognition. Kṛṣṇavipra has prākṛtānām mahārājaḥ for vākāṭakānāṁ mahārājaḥ and Kṛṣṇadāsa has also vaakappa for vākāṭaka. (Vide Introduction, p. 16).
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