Tilakamanjari

Author(s): Dhanpal, Sudarshankumar Sharma
Publisher: Parimal Publications

Page 49

DHANAPĀLA AS A PROSE WRITER
of the great scholars and establishes the view that it is a love episode of the two couples who after passing through ordeals of a Vipralabhasủngāra or love in separation achieve their end admirably and the romance is a comedy though tragedies befall the characters ever and anon during the course of their achievements.
Śrī Nārāyaṇa Manilāla Kansārā (Introduction to Pallīpāla Dhanapāla's Tilakamañjarīsāra) agrees with me on this point by saying
'The Tilakamañjarī (TM) of Kavi Dhanapāla is a Sanskrit prose-romance depicting a love affair on the one hand of prince Harivāhana with a celestial princess Tilakamañjarī and on the other hand, that of another prince Samaraketu with a semi celestial princess Malayasundari."
Regarding the sources of the plot it is very difficult to say as to whence did Dhanapāla derive his inspiration to interconnect the main threads of his narratives. Even his characters do not afford any clues to the parallels they might have sought cues from. Still the lofty encomium offered to Guņādhya and his Brhatkathā by Dhanapāla can afford us an inkling into the surmise that he must have picked up the drops of water from the huge ocean of tales making them laden with variety of coloured pearls in the form of words to make the muse of his Lavanasindhu, Ratnākara as observed by him himself during the course of his narratives.
He says
"Having taken verily a drop out of the ocean in the form of Brhatkathā and rendered polished, the other stories appear like the mantle of worn out rags (lit. loincloths) before that”
As is well known the original Brhatkathā was in Paiśāci a spoken dialect, a subdivision of the spoken Prākstas, according to some a dialect spoken round about the areas of Pratistāna (modern Paithana“) or a village Pothra situated on a small river of the same name which joins the Wunna, a remnant of town Supratistha as given in the Kathāsaritsāgara", while
1. HSL p. 178. (Hindi Ed). Rāmanarayan Lal Beniprasad, Allahabad-, 1962. 2. TM p. 323, Vol. II. L.8, p. 117 (English Edition CH-XVII 3. Fire -GHIR :
Hae: well: ufaufa qua: 11 TM. Intr. verse 21. 4. Dr. D. K. Gupta.p.100 Society and Culture in the time of Dandin. 5. Home of Guņādhya. V. V. Mirashi studies in Indology Pt. 1. p.69 Vidarbha
Samsodhana Mandak Nagapur, 1960.