Swayambhuchand

Author(s): H D Velankar
Publisher: Rajasthan Prachyavidya Pratishtan

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Svayambhū, were responsible for cultivating an abundant and rich literature in Prakrit and Apabhraṁsa. Though about most of these names we know nothing more, they are strong evidence of a respectable and vigorous literary tradition. This is again more than confirmed by the aesthetic appeal and freshness that invest many of the cited verses. It is again from the Svayambhücchandas, that we get a clearer picture of the form and structure of Sandhibandha and Rāsābandha, the two most characteristic genres of Apabhraṁs'a literature. Several obscure points too in Hemacandra's work are clarified and some welcome light is shed on the function of several classes of mātrā-metres. Such points of importance of the Svayambhūcchandas can be easily multiplied.
The credit of rescuing so valuable a work from oblivion goes entirely to my learned friend Prof. H. D. Velankar, whose researches in the field of classical Indian metres are too important and wellknown to need any mention here. His earlier edition of the Svayambhūcchandas was based on a single and then only known manuscript from Baroda, which was moreover fragmentary. The printing of the same text revised for the Rajasthan Puratan Granthamala was nearing completion when fortunately, he received quite unexpectedly a palm leaf fragment of another manuscript of the Svayambhūcchandas which, along with numerous Buddhist manuscripts was discovered in a Tibetan monastery by the great savant and my friend Pandit Rahula Sankrityayana, and which to a large extent supplied the missing portion of the Svayambhūcchandas. The findspot of this new Ms. fragment and its Old Bengali script are quite significant for the spread and authority of Svayambhu's work. Though the two fragmentary Mss. between themselves cover a major portion of the original text, there still remain several serious lacunas.
Prof. Velankar has, as is his wont, spared no pains to increase the usefulness of the edition. The critical introduction, translations and informative and comparative notes, besides several indices and appendices readily reveal his acumen, thoroughness and erudition. Moreover, he has also included in the present edition Rājasekhara's Chandaḥsekhara, an eleventh century Sanskrit version of the Svayambhūcchandas, only
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