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A History of Sanskrit Literature c14.s8: 8. Minor Historical Kāvya

A History of Sanskrit Literature c14.s8

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English

8. Minor Historical Kāvya

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India has nothing comparable to set beside the work of Kalhaṇa, and a brief mention is all that the remaining epics deserve. Another Kashmirian, Jalhaṇa, mentioned by Maṅkha as a member of the Sabhā of Alaṁkāra, wrote an account of the life of the king of Rājapurī, Somapālavilāsa, who was conquered by Sussala, in his *Somapālavilāsa*.¹ The virtuous but extremely dreary Jain monk Hemacandra (1088–1172) wrote while the Caulukya king of Aṇhilvāḍ, Kumārapāla, was still alive and at the height of his fame, about 1163 his *Kumārapālacarita*² or *Dvyāçrayakāvya* in his honour. The poem owes its second name to the fact that it consists of two parts, one of twenty cantos in Sanskrit and one of eight in Prākrit, and it has, besides its historical, a definitely grammatical purpose, being intended to afford illustrations of the rules of Sanskrit and Prākrit grammar taught in his own grammar. The poem, of course, includes some account of the predecessors of his hero, and it has a distinct value for the history of the Caulukyas. But Hemacandra was an earnest Jain; he saw things distorted by his devotion to his religion, of which he was a zealous propagandist. His success in this regard is proved by the fact that the cantos (xvi–xx) of the poem celebrating Kumārapāla’s rule seem to be true to fact, in substance at any rate, in representing the king as a loyal follower of the principles of Jainism who forbade the slaughter of animals under the severest penalty, erected freely Jain temples, and pursued a definitely pro-Jain policy.

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¹ Cf. *Rājataraṅgiṇī*, viii. 621 f.

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² Ed. BSS. 60, 69, 76, 1900–21; Bühler, *Hemachandra*, pp. 18 f., 43.

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Fate unfortunately has left only one fragmentary and defective manuscript of a poem of some historical interest, the *Pṛthvīrājavijaya*,³ an account of the victories of the Cāhamāna king of Ajmir and Delhi, Pṛthvīrāja, who won a great victory over Sultan Shihāb-ud-dīn Ghorī in 1191, though he was shortly afterwards ruined and slain. The poem seems to have been written in the lifetime of the king probably just after that victory, though as it is unfinished this is a mere conjecture. The name of the author is unknown, but he may have been a Kashmirian, as is suggested by his imitation of Bilhaṇa's style; his form of exordium, in which he mentions Bhāsa; and the fact that he is mentioned by Jayarath in the *Alaṁkāravimarçinī* (*c.* 1200), and is commented on by Jonarāja (*c.* 1448) of Kashmir.

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³ Har Bilas Sarda, JRAS. 1913, pp. 259 ff.; ed. BI. 1914–22.

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A minister of the princes of Gujarāt, the Vāghelās, Lavaṇaprasāda and Vīradhavala, is responsible for the writing of two panegyrics. The first is the *Kīrtikaumudī*¹ of Someçvaradatta (1179–1262), author of various inscriptions in which verses from his poem occur; the eulogy of Vastupāla, who was clearly a generous man, and very probably an excellent minister of a type well known in Indian history, is of moderate poetic worth, but it throws a good deal of light on various aspects of Indian social and political life. The *Surathotsava*² in fifteen cantos by the same author is on the face of it mythical, but it is possible that it is a political allegory, as it ends with an account of the poet's own history, a phenomenon which is noteworthy in the *Harṣacarita* of Bāṇa and in Bilhaṇa, and it alludes again to Vastupāla. A direct panegyric is the *Sukṛtasaṁkīrtana*³ of Arisiṅha, also of the thirteenth century, in eleven cantos, which is useful historically as affording a check on Someçvaradeva. It is not until a century later that we have in the *Jagaḍūcarita*⁴ of Sarvānanda a panegyric of a pious Jain layman who aided his townsfolk by building new walls and affording them great support in the terrible famine of 1256–8 in Gujarāt. It is interesting to find in this poem of seven cantos the usual miracles and legends told in respect of a simple merchant, but as poetry the work is worthless, and in language and metre alike it is no better than the contemporary Jain verse legends.

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¹ Ed. A. V. Kathvate, BSS. 25, 1883.

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² Ed. KM. 73, 1902.

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³ G. Bühler, *Das Sukṛtasaṁkīrtana des Arisiṁha* (1889).

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⁴ G. Bühler, *Indian Studies*, i (1892).

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Of some importance as giving details of historical events elsewhere more vaguely recorded is the *Rāmapālacarita*¹ of Sandhyākaran Nandin, who described the feats of the powerful king Rāmapāla of Bengal, who recovered his ancestral throne from an usurper, Bhīma, and conquered Mithilā, reigning *c.* 1084-1130. The *Rājendrakarṇapūra*² of Çambhu is a panegyric of Harṣadeva of Kashmir at whose court he wrote the *Anyoktimuktālatāçataka*. The poem is of no great merit.

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¹ Ed. Haraprasāda Sāstrī, *A. S. B. Memoirs*, III. i (1910). Cf. EI. ix. 321; EHI. p. 416; above, p. 137.

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² Ed. KM. i. 22 ff.

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Finally there may be noted the work of the Kashmir writers who continued the *Rājataraṅgiṇī*.³ Jonarāja, who died in 1459, carried it on under the same style to the reign of Sultan Zainu-l-‘ābidīn; his pupil Çrīvara covered in the *Jaina-Rājataraṅgiṇī* in four books the period 1459-86, while Prājya Bhaṭṭa and his pupil Çuka in the *Rājāvalipatākā* carried on the tale to some years after the annexation of Kashmir by Akbar. The work of these writers is devoid of originality or merit; Çrīvara shamelessly borrows from Kalhaṇa, and, despite the length of the period with which they deal, the total of their work is not more than half that of the *Rājataraṅgiṇī*; they waste space in episodic descriptions, and they are far less accurate in matters of topography than Kalhaṇa.

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³ Ed. Calcutta, 1835; Bühler, *Report*, p. 61; Stein, *Rājataraṅgiṇī*, ii. 373.

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