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$$ 19-20) सटीको वृत्तजातिसमुच्चयः
XXV (vii) The group of the manuscripts written on palm leaves and preserved at Jesalmere contains 6 works on prosody as we shall see below (para 21). Of these the first is dated Samvat 1190 and the last Samvat 1192. Virahānka's work and its commentary are Nos. 3 and 4 among these. Now the author of this commentary, Gopāla, must be regarded as removed from Virahānka by several centuries, from his description of the condition of Virahanka's work at the time when he undertook to write the commentary on it. He tells us how several words and expressions in the work had been distorted thrcugh the mistakes of the writers of the manuscripts (pustaka-lekhakadosat), which apparently had become rather common at his times, or by the mispronunciation of uneducated persons in the course of oral transmission, or by an intentional mani. pulation of interested persons, and how he tried to restore the lost or distorted words of the text by consulting trustworthy persons and by arriving at the proper text with the help of many copies of the work of Virahānka which he had collected for that purpose. This statement of Gopāla proves the existence of a number of manuscripts of Virahānka's work at the time when the commentary was composed. Similarly it proves that the work was vastly used both by the educated and the un. educated persons and was regarded as an authoritative or standard manual of Präkrit prosody, so much so that interested persons, both poets and prosodists, sometimes felt tempted to change or manipulate its words so as to be favourable to their own views. Gopāla also quotes the views of older commentators of Virahanka's work in some places like II. 3, 6, 7; IV. 8, 101 etc., but does not mention any by names. Again he does not evidently know anything about Virahānka and has no traditional knowledge about the significance of the name Virahänka. He imagines that Sadbhāvalañchana was the name of his Guru, who, he says, was himself a great poet. He does not know who Avalepacihna was, but merely guesses that he was a great poet. All this would suggest that Virahānka's name had almost become legendary at the time of his commentator Gopāla, though his work was still regarded as an authoritative manual on Prākrit prosody.
20. All these considerations lead us to the natural conclusion that Virahānka must have lived some time between the 6th and the 8th century A.D. Virahānka was a non-Jain and this may be the reason why he was neglected in the coming centuries by the Prākrit poets and prosodists who were mainly Jain.38 The great Hemacandra very likely knew 38. This tendency of ignoring non-Jain authors where possible and giving promin
ence to the Jain cnes is seen among the Jain writers as said by me in my Introduction to Jayadevachandas, at Jayadāman, Introduction, pp. 32-33.
