Vajjalaggam

Author(s): M V Patwardhan
Publisher: Prakrit Text Society

Page 55

Jiv
VAJJALACGAM
in particular. Krsna is here identified with Keśava and Hari and is spoken of as may and fry antar, and Lakşmi is referred to as his consort. All this points to the belief in the divine nature of Kșşņa and in his being an incarnation of Vişnu; (11) another whole section ( Feqah1 st. 606-610) deals with the private life of Śiva and Pärvati.
Although the VL is, according to Jayavallabha himself, only a collection of Subhāșitas composed by different poets, we find in it considerable literary merit, which confirms the claim of the author that he has included in the collection the best stanzas that he could lay his hands on. We must unhesitatingly credit Jaya. vallabha with literary judgement of a high order in selecting stanzas for his anthology and it is even likely that just like Hala he was not a mere compiler but an editor who may have given to many of the stanzas their final form and finish and may even have composed some of them (e.g. the introductory stanzas 1-31) himself.
Jayavallabha says in st. 1 that he is presenting in his anthology the excellent utterances of wise people ( सुयणाण सुहासिय वोच्छं). Thus according to Jayavallabha the stanzas in the present collection are Subhāṣitas. If we examine the nature of the stanzas, we find that a good many of them are guitars in the sense of apothegms or epigrams i.e. terse, pithy, instructive sayings on morality and worldly wisdom (e.g. stanzas in the 95900 , FAST, #gasst, itasai, rasil, Eimast, ciften etc. ). But there are besides these many other stanzas which are without any obvious didactic motive and are purely descriptive ( e.g. the stanzas in 17E1991, $54971, fahaml, 749971, 19371, firasal, algatat, H1092351, cia catal, the sections on the seasons of the year etc. ). These too are to be regarded as Subhāşitas in the sense that they are clever word. pictures tersely presenting various things, ideas and situations, in an apt, appealing and convincing manner. Brevity and clever. ness are the most important features of all guions, whether they are didactic or descriptive, or whether they are in prose or verse. They do away with all non-essential details and confining themselves only to the most salient, striking and essential points, convey to the readers ( or listeners ) a very clear and vivid idea of the matter dealt with.