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CHAPTER-VII
THE RĀMÁYAŅA VERSION OF ACĀRYA HARIŞEŅA
(as found in his BRHATKATHAKOSA')
1. PERSONAL HISTORY AND DATE OF THE AUTHOR Harişena, the author of this Bphat-Kathākosa, belonged to the Punnāta-samgha. Punnața country was a part of Karņătaka (territory whose capital was Kirtipura, the present Kittura). The ascetic group that hailed from Punnāta and settled down at Vardhamānapura and round about came to be known as Punnāta-samgha there. In the South, originally it was perhaps known as Kittura-Samgha, a name derived from the capital of Punnāta country, which is mentioned in one of the Sravana Belgola inscriptions of C. Saka 622. Besides our Harişeņa, the only author that mentions Bịhat or simply Punnāta-Samgha or -gana is Jinasena, who completed his Harivami sa at the same Vardhamāna-nagara (the present Wadhawan in Kathiawar) in A.D. 783, just 148 years earlier than this Kathākosa.
As to the year of composition the author is quite explicit: he wrote this Kosa in Vikrama Sam. 989 or Saka 853, i.e. about 932 A.D.
The contemporary king was Vināyakapāla of the Pratihāra dynasty. Harişeņa's spiritual ancestry as given by him in his Prasasti is: Mauni Bhattāraka - Sri Harişena - Bharatasena - and Harişena (our author). Harişena speaks of his teacher in these terms: "he was a poet well-versed in different branches of learning, metrics, rhetorics, poetics, dramaturgy, grammar and logic, and was attended upon by the learned." And about himself he writes that he did not possess any (expert) knowledge of grammar, metrics and logic - this is of course his modesty.
No other work of Harlşena has come to light. His Kathakosa (or Treasury of Stories) contains 157 Kathānakas - tales which illustrate the veiled and explicit allusions found in the Bhagavati Aradhana. He tells us that the tales are drawn out, extracted or chosen from the (Bhagavatī) Ārādhanā, perhaps inseparably connected with some Prakrit commentary that gave all these tales. Harişeņa uniformly calls this treasury, Kathākosa. The term Brhat connotes bulk and extent and was probably added later on to the title to distinguish the work from smaller collections of Prabhācandra and Nemidatta. The whole work is composed mostly in Anuştubh metre.
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Edited by Dr. A. N. 'Upadhye, M.A., D. Litt., S.J.S. No. 17.
