________________
The Author of Ratng Mañ jusĝ and the Binomial Expansion
97
The Commentary
Most of the illustrations seem to have been composed by the commentator himself. Nearly half of the illustrations (40 out of 85) contain the name of the metre artificially introduced by way of mudra. Tbis gives a pretty clear indication that these illustrations were composed for the occasion itself
Sanskrit Prosody
We have seen that the word mātrā in Sanskrit signifies 'measure'. The basic units in Sanskrit prosody are letters having a single mātra and those having two mātrās, called laghu and guru, respectively. Here, the measures are in respect of sound value of the letters (or time taken in uttering the letters, so to say). For consistency, throughout, the word syllable' has been used in The sense of nātrā of Sanskrit prosody.
Also in Sanskrit prosody, a monosyllabic letter is denoted by I and e disyllabic, by S and their role in metric is the same as that of 1 and 2 in combinator cs.
Again, metres in Sanskrit poetry mainly fall under three c.tegories viz , varni vrttas, mätrā vritas and others (such as the äryä, the vaitā liya etc.).
Varna V rttas and their Expansion
We have seen that varna vritas are metres where the number of letters remains constant and the number of syllables is arbitray.
TI
The author of Ratoa Mañjūşa gives the following rules for the expansion of varna vștias.
First of all the author gives 6 rules for finding the number of variations of a metre of this kind. According to these rules the number of variations of a metre of this kind and having n letters is 2"
According to the rules for expansion of such metres, starting from S, I is written below S, alternately, at such numb:r of places which are equal to the pumber of variations of the metre. This gives the first letters of all variations of the metre.
Next, in the 2nd places of the variations, S is written in the first two variations and then I in the next two variations and then S, in the next two variations and so on.
3-4. Ref. 1, Introd., p. i. 5. Rm, viii, 10-11. 6. Rm., viii, 1-5.
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
