Srngaramanjari Katha

Author(s): Bhojdev, Kalpalata K Munshi
Publisher: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan

Page 58

A CRITICAL APPRECIATION OF THE SMK
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story is the one given in Hemachandra's Parisistaparvan.29 The motif in both the stories is the same, that the hero overlooks the unfaithfulness of his wife (in one case) and his daughter-in-law in another) on seeing that even ladies of noble birth, like the queens, were deeply degraded by their sensuality.30
Devadattā finding out the truth about the queen's nocturnal adventures, his informing the king, the marks of the chains on the queen's body and the king's punishment all closely resemble Mūladeva's story.31 We have in the former part of Devadatta's story the narration of the daughter-in-law's bad conduct. Is it possible that the lost part of the story of Mūladeva's wife might have been similar to it in certain respects?
The analogous stories referred to here are not exhaustive; for the purpose in referring to them is only to show the similarity between the tales in SMK with those in other works. And yet, as has already been noted, the SMK has its own distinctiveness. The absence of originality in the plots or motifs does not lessen the literary merit of the work. The poet's merit lies in the way he narrates and develops the story, and in his style, characterisation, descriptions and other niceties of language which are the standards of critical appreciation.
Style and Diction
SMK belongs to the decadent period of Sanskrit literature when the creative genius of the poet was cramped by the rigidities of forms and conventions, and the poet imitated the creations of his predecessors. The works of this period therefore naturally came to be overladen with the artificialities of formal descriptions, poetic excellences and technicalities, exhibiting more the erudition of the poet than his creativeness. The SMK follows the same pattern and resembles in style the earlier prose romances like the Kādanbari, and the comtemporaneous ones like the Tilakamañjari. But on the whole the composition does not become artificial. The style which is simple in narration is embellished with various kinds of alamkāras in the descriptive passages.
The most frequent figure of speech is the paranomastic simile (Sliştopamā). The puns are interesting, and though novel, are not 29. Bibliotheca Indica, No. 96, (1932). 30. Cf. these words of SMK with those in the Parisistaparvan. SMK. (p. 9).
कुलस्त्रियोऽपि दृष्टिमात्ररागिण्यः परपुरुषेष्वेवं जीवितवित्तादिनिरपेक्षा व्यवहरन्ति för 97: Faaral araftar: 1 and V.S. 561, p. 96:अहो असूर्यपश्यानामपि यद्राजयोषिताम् ।
शीलभंगो भवत्येवमन्यनारीष का कथा । 31. Other Prakrit versions of the tale are noted by Handiqui in his Yaśastilaka
campū and Indian Culture, Chap. III, p. 42, 48 f.