A History of Sanskrit Literature c19.s5.5

c19.s5.5

The sense of this stanza appears to me clear: ‘Literary convention and the connexion of topics have been presented as best I could, as well as the arrangement of a part of the poem so as not to offend against the sentiment of the story (or the story and its sentiment).’ We have, it seems, a recognition of the fact that there has been change of order, and that it was made in order to preserve the sentiment in the tale. This accords exactly with what we find in the arrangement. In the first five books there is no change. But for the rest Somadeva was dominated by his desire to preserve the effect of the poem, and obviously this compelled the breach of the gap between Pañca and Mahābhiṣeka; in his text the transition is perfect; the former book ends with the decision of the prince to obtain the jewels necessary for the coronation of a would-be emperor, and the next book carries on the proposal, though in a slightly casual manner which Somadeva has not altogether obliterated. This left him, however, with three books to fit in, Ratnaprabhā, Alaṁkāravatī, and Çaktiyaças, and obviously necessitated a complete overhauling of the earlier part of the poem in order not to overburden it. The solution adopted was to fit these three books, which all deal with adventures of the prince before he became emperor, in the space before Pañca and to eliminate from the earlier matter two books, which could, as not dealing with the hero's own adventures but merely being stories told to him, be fitted in as an appendix, that is the books Padmāvatī and Viṣamaçīla. The arrangement of the material before Pañca is carried out artistically in so far as an effort is made to interpose books mainly episodic with those giving important if incidental acts of the hero. Thus after the fifth book which is episodic we have the important book Madanamañcukā (vi); this is followed by the Ratnaprabhā (vii); the Sūryaprabha (viii), which intervenes before Alaṁkāravatī (ix), is essentially merely episodic; Çaktiyaças (x) runs naturally on from Alaṁkāravatī as containing incidental stories; then follow Velā (xi), Çaçāṅkavatī (xii), Madirāvatī (xiii), the all-important Pañca and Mahābhiṣeka (xiv and xv), and, by way of appendix, Suratamañjarī, Padmāvatī, and Viṣamaçīla (xvi–xviii). One change in the actual contents of a book was necessary. In Kṣemendra and probably in the original Velā was not merely episodic; it contained at the close the vital element of the disappearance of Madanamañcukā, which explains the grief of the king alluded to in the following books. Nothing of this sort accorded with Somadeva's plan of working in the books Ratnaprabhā, Alaṁkāravatī, and Çaktiyaças, and therefore the allusion had to disappear, although it was not possible for Somadeva to avoid leaving occasional traces in the books before Pañca in his order that Madanamañcukā had already been lost.