Tilakamanjari

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

Page 61

DHANAPALA AS A PROSE WRITER
(Dharmastheyāḥ), his secretaries of amusements (Narmasacivāh) or the pleasure companions, his priests (purodhasaḥ), his counsellors (Mantriņah) his espionage (Gūdhapuruṣāḥ), his bards (Vandipurtrāḥ) followed by a detailed account of the Law and Order situation prevailing during his reign period marked by the figure Parisamkhyā (Exclusion or Restriction) p. 70 LL 5-8/Botad ed. The four verses substantiate his excellent way of administration. In the subsequent prose-passage he goes to inform the reader that king Meghavāhana who had been consecrated to the throne while being a boy, had entrusted the onus of administration to his counsellors after having become a fully fledged monarch and in doing that he had made himself free from all worries by appropriating the earth engirt by seven seas, had rendered all the quarters free from thorns, had dug up victory-columns all over the extremities of his kingdom, had a fabulous treasury, had subjugated all the vassals, had won the confidence of all his ministers as also of the allies, had stationed men of reliance in the forts and himself with mind addicted to the enjoyment of physical pleasures, had brought into being a battle field of sensual sports. The whole sentence is laden with heavily loaded compound epithets brimming with hard consonants. All types of cajoleries and pranks of erotic sports and dalliance in company with women have been described in details comprising of separate single sentences starting with 'Kadācit etc. Apart from that he attended to his kingly duties as also as opportunities offered him to do so and even took up the task of moving incognito in the city to find out the strength and weakness of his administration. His counsellors, too, took to their respective duties most carefully para 51-3, pp 43-70: 71-78, p. 78 LL1-2. Botād ed.
Indulging in all these descriptive details Dhanapāla ultimately brings before the eyes of the readers the fact that even though endowed with all these gifts of physical and intellectual enjoyment, he could not derive pleasure of embracing the limbs of his self born i.e. a son. The psychological repression at night coming through dreams consequent on his suppression of feelings during the day time, caused by constant reveries is thoroughly elaborated in his descriptions of the means, the scions of the Iks vāku lineage, the goddess of fortune or royal sovereignty (Śrī), his youth, the code of law etc. After this simply to afford a clue to the facet that he had got a queen named Madirāvatī, the intervening piles of epithets of cultural importance, though they are redundant, yet they fascinate the reader to understand the leanings of the literary artist that Dhanapāla was Gangā, Ratī, Sarasvati, Pārvatī, Medini, (Earth) and Rājyalaksmī have been shown