________________
[xi
But from his particular preference to the words fa and at the commencement of the homonymous section we can infer that his personal leaning in religion was towards Saivism.
The date: As the work makes no mention of any earlier lexicons, it is not possible to fix the upper limit of its date in a definite way. But its lower limit can be assigned to the thirteenth century, as it is not infrequently quoted by Sumatigani in his मणघरसार्धशतकवृत्ति which was written in V. S. 1295 (1238-39 A. D.)
The homonymous section of this work bears great resemblance to the शाश्वतकोश, which is dated about the 6th century. 8 Like the शब्दरत्नप्रदीप, it als treats homonyms in full, half and quarter verses, and places words at random. But unlike the शब्दरत्नप्रदीप, the शाश्वतकोश has arranged the indeclinables in half and quarter verses. Secondly, both works commence with the word ',' and two verses (viz. I, 4 and I, 8) in this work are quite identical with the corresponding verses (Nos. 1 and 3) in the . But the works differ widely with respect to the selection of homonyms as well as the composition of the verses. The ोश is obviously more comprehensive and more copious than the शब्दरत्नप्रदीप as far as the homonymous section is concerned. However, this work has enlarged its scope not only by dealing with homonymous as well as nonhomonymous indeclinables, but also by adding a section on technical terms. Anyhow its close reletion to the deserves to be taken into consideration. Shri Ramavatara Sarma, and following him the late MMP Haraprasad Shastri10 enlists it among lexicons written mostly after the aft (which is assigned to the twelfth century), but I think it may be assigned to an earlier11 epoch on the ground that it has not adopted any regular order of arranging homonyms, which are usually arranged into certain systematic orders in the post-Šāśvata lexicons like the विश्वप्रकाश ( 1111 A. D.), the अनेकार्थकोश ( 12th cent.), the अनेकार्थसंग्रह (1088-1175 A. D.), the arrafa (12th or 13th cent.), and the मेदिनीकोश ( 12th cent. ). Accordingly the शब्दरत्नप्रदीप may be placed between the 7th and the 12th century.
The homonymous section of the
closely corresponds to
arafas copied in the Jesalmer manuscript which makes no
the
8. R. Sarma, Kalpadrukośa, Introduction, p. xxv.
9.
R. Sarma, op. cit., pp. xli ff.
10. Shastri Haraprasad, Descriptive Catalogue of Sanskrit Manuscripts, Preface, pp. cxlii ff.
11. Even R. Sarma doubts that some of the works enlisted in this group may be earlier (p. xli).
