A History of Sanskrit Literature c14.s8.1

c14.s8.1

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.