Two Prakrit Versions of Manipati Charitra

Author(s): R Williams
Publisher: Royal Asiatic Society

Page 33

20 TWO PRAKRIT VERSIONS OF THE MAŅIPATI-CARITA her life history. Youngest child and only daughter of a brahmin Sivaśarman (not, as in the MPC, of Dhanaśreşthin, presumably a merchant) she is given in marriage to a brahmin Somašarman who agrees to her father's stipulation that he shall never say cuņkārikā to her. One night she is very angry because he has stayed late at a brahmin gathering and refuses to let him in on his return. He shouts out : Cuņkārikā. She runs away from the house and is captured by robbers who are restrained from raping her by a divinity. She is sold to a merchant and by him to a Persian who causes her to be fattened for six months and then bled with leeches in order to provide a red dye. By a lucky chance she is found by her brother, ransomed, brought home and restored to health with the aid of lakṣapāka oil.
The story of Accankāriyabhatta also figures in the Upadeśaprāsāda,
The name of the heroine is difficult to explain. From the text of the MPC it would seem to mean 'not to be gainsaid'. It has clearly puzzled the author of the BKK who wrote: 'ko 'pi
i.. na mām cuņkārikām vakti.' The compiler of the MPCS seems to have sought elucidation from the Gujarati tūkāro : eşā . . . kenapi nāccankāryā tumkāro na deyah.'
(e) The ascetic and the crane
An exactly similar narrative is to be found in the Mahābhārata (Vanaparvan 209–219) where the brahmin ascetic Kauśika has to ask Dharmavyādha in Mithila for an explanation of the failure of his tapas only to be told that he is lacking in dama and sama.
The introductory section of the Suka-saptati tells how the ascetic Devaśarman was befouled by a crane whilst almsgathering. He cursed it and it fell dead. Then he was seized by remorse that for so trivial a fault the bird had paid with its life whilst he had given way to the graver fault of anger.
On the magic power of chaste women the Prabandha-cintāmaņi says that to certain lines of Mayūra the poet Bāņa added a fourth which was slighting to Mayūra's wife. Angry and ashamed she cursed him to become a leper, and because of her rigid chastity her curse was effective.
1 Vol. I, p. 101.