Studien Zur Indologie Und Iranistik

Author(s): Gert Klingenschmitt, Albrecht Wezler, Michael Witzel
Publisher: Gert Klingenschmitt, Albrecht Wezler, Michael Witzel

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Herman Tieken
A Formal Type of Arrangement in the Vulgata of the
Gâthâsaptasati of Hâla
One of the oldest subhâsita-samgraha-s or kośa-s i.e. a collection of short verses which are "beautifully said", is the Gâthâsaptaśâte of Hâla.
In its most widely known recension it contains 698 gâthâ-s in Mâhârâștri Prakrit, which are mainly erotic in content. The gâthâ-s deal with the total love experience of men and women from their first secret meeting through marriage to old age and love gone by. Every individual gâthâ stands by itself. In it the poet concisely depicted a single phase of emotion or a single situation within the limits of a finished form. Each single gâthâ is thus self-contained and finished in form and con
tent5
This causes a serious problem for the compiler of a kosa : what should be the governing principle for the arrangement of the individual poems within the collection? Several ways of arrangement have been used as e. g. one that groupes the poems into several sections (vrajyâ-s or paddhati-s), each section containing poems that belong to a certain theme or that make use of a certain motif or poetical device, etc. (as in the Subhâsitaratnakosa, Sûktimuktâvals etc.)
In other collections the poems are classified into sections according to the 3 purusârtha-s (as in the Vajjâlagga by Jayavallaha). Still another way of arrangement is found in the Aryâsaptaśatî of Govardhana in which the âryâ-verses are arranged in alphabetical order.
1.
3.
The Gâthâsaptasatî is known by various names. See New Catalogus Catalogorum Part 5, Madras, 1967, p. 342, under Gâthâsaptasati; also V. V. Mirashi, The Original Name of the Gâthâsaptasatî, in Papers submitted to the 13th All-India Oriental Conference, XIII, 2, pp. 370-4. The edition referred to in the following pages is that one by A. Weber, Über das Saptasatakam des Hâla, A. K. M. Band 7, nr. 4 (1 881). A. Weber op. cit. p. IX. Erotic is certainly not a proper designation as it covers the content of only a small number of gâthâ-s. I would prefer the term "love poetry". The Gangadhara-version of the Gâthâsaptasatt also contains some gâthâ-s of heroic content (471, 630, 634) or some in which heroic features are prominent (31, 54, 55, 91, 118, 331, 363, 464,515, 686,687, and probably even more. Dandin's muktaka , Bhâmaha's and Vâmana's anibaddha Ludwik Sternbach, Subhâsita, Gnomic and Didactic Literature, Wiesb. 1974, p. 2. L. Sternbach, op. cit., p. 4 and 12.
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4. 5. 6.