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Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v1.c37: XX Arisimha, Amaracandra And Devesvara

Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v1.c37

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XX Arisimha, Amaracandra And Devesvara

v1.c37.1

The Śvetāmbara Jainas, Arisimha and Amaracandra, are notable in Sanskrit Poetics for a work on the composition of verses called the *Kavitā-rahasya* or *Kāvya-kalpalatā*, and its commentary entitled *Kāvya-kalpalatā Kaviśikṣā-vṛtti*. This work was composed in part by Arisimha and completed by Amaracandra¹, who also wrote the commentary². Arisimha, described as the son of Lāvaṇyasiṃha or Lavaṇasiṃha wrote also a poem (called *Sukṛta-saṃkīrtana*) in honour of his patron Vastupāla (d. 1242 A.D.), the Jaina minister of the Dholkā Rāṇā Vīradhabala; and he also lived in the time of Vīradhabala's son Vīsaladeva³. Amaracandra appears to be a more prolific writer, being also the author of the *Jinēndra-carita* (otherwise called *Padmānanda-kāvya*¹, the *Bāla-bhārata*² and a grammar (?) called *Syādiśabda-samuccaya* (Aufrecht i 180). Rājaśekhara, the Jaina author of the *Prabandha-kośa*, also attributes a *Sūktāvali* and a *Kalā-kalāpa*. In the *vṛtti* to the *Kāvya-kalapalatā* itself, three other works by Amaracandra are cited, viz. the *Chando-ratnāvalī*, a work on Prosody (p. 7), the *Kāvya-kalapalatā-parimala*³, (pp. 22, 31, 80), probably an epitome or continuation of the same work, and an independent work on Poetics called *Alaṃkāra-prabodha* (p. 147).

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¹ *kiṃcic ca tad-racitam ātmakṛtam ca kiṃcit | vyākhyāsyate tvarita-kāvya-kṛte'tra sūtram*, says the *vṛtti*.

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² The colophon calls the *vṛtti* *kavi-śikṣā-vṛtti*. Bühler thinks, from i 1 and 2, that the original *kārikā*-verses of Arisimha were called *Kavitā-rahasya*, while Amaracandra's *vṛtti* was entitled *Kāvya-kalpalatā*.

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³ See the question discussed in detail in Bühler, *Das Sukṛtasamkīrtana des Arisimha*, Wien 1889, pp. 5f, 38; also *IA* vi 210-12.

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¹ Peterson i p. 126 no. 285, also pp. 58-59 and App. I p. 2; Bühler, *op. cit.* pp. 5, 38.

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² ed. in *Kāvyamālā* 45.

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³ cf *IOC* 848, which has a reference to *Kāvya-kalapalatā-mañjarī*.

v1.c37.8

Amaracandra was a pupil of Jinadatta Sūri⁴ of the Vāyaḍa-gaccha, who is identified with the author of the *Viveka-vilāsa* and who lived about the middle of the 13th century⁵. Amaracandra appears to have been a pupil or a fellow-student of Arisiṃha⁶ and lived, according to the account given in Jaina Rājaśekhara’s work⁷, in time of Vīradhabala and his minister Vastupāla, as well as in that of Visaladeva, before the latter's accession to the throne of Aṇhilvāḍ i.e. about the second quarter or the middle of the 13th century.

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⁴ See the concluding verse of *Bāla-bhārata* and the colophon to the *Kāvya-kalapalatā*.

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⁵ See Peterson i p 58-59, but Peterson’s conjecture about Jinadatta is not right; see also Merutuṅga’s *Prabandha-cintāmaṇi*, p. 258; Peterson iv pp. viii, xxxvi and App. 115; Bhandarkar *Rep.* 1883-84, pp. 6, 156; Bühler *op. cit.* pp. 25, 48.

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⁶ Rājaśekhara says that Amara was a pupil of Arisiṃha. Cf Śrīdhara Bhandarkar’s *Rep.* 1904-6, pp. 23-24: Bühler *op. cit.* pp. 5-6: *contra* Bhandarkar.

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⁷ His work is dated in 1348 A.D. See introd. to

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The date of Deveśvara, author of the *Kavi-kalpalatā*, can be approximately settled from the internal evidence supplied by the work itself; for it closely follows, in its treatment of the subject and general arrangement, Arisiṃha and Amaracandra's work; and it is not difficult to show that he also slavishly copies wholesale from the text of his predecessors. He borrows literally most of the rules and definitions, and even repeats the illustrative stanzas. Thus Deveśvara pp. 157-60 (*veṇyāḥ sarpási⁰*) and pp. 36-7 (*ratnádi yatra*) = Arisiṃha pp. 135-37 and pp. 30-1; the definition of *adbhuta-vidhi* in Arisiṃha p. 93 = Deveśvara p. 130. This copying is not sporadic but systematic, and is found practically throughout the work, so that it is highly probable that Deveśvara had had the text of the *Kāvya-kalpalatā* before him, when he composed his own work on the same subject. This gives us one terminus to his date at the middle of the 13th century.

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The other terminus is given by the fact that a verse of Deveśvara's (*nāga-viśeṣe śeṣe* p. 155) is quoted under his name in the *Paddhati* of Śārṅga-

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Amara's *Bāla-bhārata* ed. Kāvyamālā. Rājaśekhara was a pupil of Tilaka Sūri of Koṭika Gaṇa (Peterson iv p. cv).

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dhara (545, *deveśvarasya*). As this anthology was compiled about 1363 A.D., we get the middle of the 14th century as the other terminus. Allowing half a century to elapse between Deveśvara and Arisimha, on the one hand, and a similar period of time between Deveśvara and the compiler of the *Paddhati*, on the other, we may roughly fix the beginning of the 14th century as his approximate date.

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Deveśvara describes himself as the son of Vāgbhaṭa, who was a *mahāmātya* to the king of Mālava; and in one of the *samasyā-ślokas*, there is a panegyric of Hammīra-mahīmahendra, who is apparently the Cauhan prince of that name who reigned about 1283 A.D.¹.

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¹ See a note by the present writer in *JRAS* 1922 p. 578f on the date of Deveśvara. In the footnote there, omit the words "from the author's own comment on the word." Deveśvara also refers to another work of his, called *Candra-kalāpa* (*matkṛta-candrakalāpe'malamatibhis tad budhair jñeyam*, *ŚgŚ* ii p. 225, also in Bibl. Ind. ed.). The variant in the Calcutta edition (1900) reads (p. 42) instead *matkṛta-kavikalpalatā-parimalatās*, while an alternative reading noticed in the Bibl. Indica ed. (p. 52) is *matkṛta-kavi-kalpalatāyām amalamatibhis*

Cites (6)