Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v1.c42: XXII Vidyadhara And Mallinatha

Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v1.c42

Language
English

XXII Vidyadhara And Mallinatha

v1.c42.1

The date of Vidyādhara, author of the *Ekāvalī*¹ has been fixed with sufficient approximation by Trivedi and R. G. Bhandarkar². The latest writer quoted and mentioned by Vidyādhara is Ruyyaka (p. 150); and this gives us one terminus to his date at the middle of the 12th century. This conclusion is apparently supported by Vidyādhara's mention (p. 19) of Śrīharṣa, author of the *Naiṣadha*, who lived very probably in the 12th century¹; but Vidyādhara’s allusion in the same context to the poet Harihara², who is said by him to have obtained amazing wealth from a prince Arjuna (presumably the ruler of Mālava of that name), puts this terminus a little lower at the first quarter of the 13th century. The Ekāvalī, in its turn, is quoted by Siṅgabhūpāla³, whose date is fixed at 1330 A. D. while Mallinātha, at the end of the 14th century, commented upon it. The internal evidence of the text, therefore, assigns it to a period between the first quarter of the 13th and the first quarter of the 14th century.

v1.c42.2

¹ Aufrecht (i 75) mentions three different works called *Ekāvalī*, which appear to be the same work. The first and the third are undoubtedly identical and refer to our *Ekāvalī*: but the second is described by Burnell 54a (cf Oppert ii 3605) as composed by Mahāmāheśvara Kavi. This, however, appears to be a title of Vidyādhara himself, and is apparently the source of the confusion of our Vidyādhara with Abhinavagupta who also bore the same title (see Weber ii no. 1723). The colophon in the Madras MS (*Madras Cat.* p. 8611) reads : *iti śrīmato mahāmāheśvarasya kaver vidyādharasya kṛtāvekāvalī-nāmnyalaṃkāra-śāstre* etc. The first verse quoted in Burnell is the same as found in all the texts of our *Ekāvalī*. The commentary *Taralā* noticed by Weber (*loc. cit.*) is apparently the same as *Taralā* of Mallinātha. The *Keli-rahasya* on Erotics is ascribed to Vidyādhara by Aufrecht, but the colophon gives the author's name as Vaidya-vidyādhara.

v1.c42.3

² Introd. to the text in B. S. S. and Bhandarkar *Rep.* 1887-91, p. lxvif.

v1.c42.4

¹ See Bühler in *JRASBom.* x. p. 31f, xi. p. 279f; K. T. Telang in *IA* ii p. 71, iii 81f; Bühler, *Rep.* 1874-75, p. 8.

v1.c42.5

² See Trivedi’s note at p. 348.

v1.c42.6

³ *Rasārṇava-sudhākara* p. 107 = *Ekāv.* i 2. Cf *ŚgŚ* i p. 7f. This verse occurs however as the third *praśasti-śloka* in the printed text of Bilhaṇa’s *Karṇa-sundarī* (ed. Kāvyamālā 7, 1895, p. 56).

v1.c42.7

This approximation has been considerably narrowed down to the end of the 13th and the beginning of the 14th century by the identification of king Narasimha of Kaliṅga, panegyrised in the illustrative verses of the work, with Narasimha II of Kaliṅga, whose dates fall between 1280 and 1314. The patron of our author is described as one who crushed the pride of Hammīra (pp. 176, 177, 257, 260), who is probably the famous Cauhan prince, the hero of Nayacandra Sūri’s poem⁴, who began his reign about 1283 A. D., and attempted a conquest of Southern countries. All this makes it probable that the *Ekāvalī* was composed towards the end of the 13th and the beginning of the 14th century.

v1.c42.8

⁴ See ed. Kirtane v 56, also p. 27; Bhandarkar *op. cit.* p. lxvii f.

v1.c42.9

The date of Mallinātha, author of the *Taralā* commentary on the *Ekāvalī*, has also been fixed at the end of the 14th century by Bhandarkar and Trivedi¹. He must have written his commentary after a certain time had elapsed from the composition of the original text; for from *śl.* 6 it appears that the *Ekāvalī* was not studied for some time because it had no commentaries. He is identical with Kolācala Mallinātha Sūri (Peḍḍa Bhaṭṭa) who is the well-known scholiast and commentator on the five standard *mahākāvyas* of Kālidāsa, Bhāravi, Bhaṭṭi and Māgha, in some of which he quotes from the *Ekāvalī* itself.

v1.c42.10

¹ Bhandarkar, *Rep.* 1887-91 p. lxix ; Trivedi, introd. to Bhaṭṭi pp. xxiv-xxviii, introd. to *Ekāvalī* p. xxviif ; Pāṭhak, introd. to *Meghadūta* pp. 11-12 ; Nandargikar, introd. to *Raghu* pp. 1-6, esp. pp. 5-6. Aufrecht in *Bod. Cat.* 113a states that Mallinātha flourished after the 18th century, on which see Bhandarkar, pref. to *Mālatī-mādhava* p. xx.

v1.c42.11

Edition. ed. K. P. Trivedi in the Bombay Sansk. Series 63, 1903, with the *Taralā* of Mallinātha and introd. and notes.

v1.c42.12

MSS. Aufrecht i 75a, ii 14b ; *Madras Cat.* 12801.

Linked texts (5)