A History of Sanskrit Literature c9.s4.5

c9.s4.5

The evidence of this inscription is confirmed and strengthened by that derivable from a record¹ of Siri Puḷumāyi at Nāsik, written in Prākrit prose. There can be no doubt of the familiarity of the writer with Sanskrit; it is even possible that he wrote his text in that language and then, in order to comply with the usage of the day, rendered it into Prākrit for purposes of publication. Siri Puḷumāyi may be identified with Siro-Polemaios of Baithana, Pratiṣṭhāna on the Godāvarī, of Ptolemy and the date of the inscription is not far removed from that of the Girnār record. It begins with an enormous sentence of eight and a half lines, long compounds fill lines 2–6, then a brief rest is given by the insertion of short words, and the whole ends with a compound of sixteen words and forty-three syllables. This is deliberate art, however little we may admire it, and the same technique is found in Bāṇa, used perhaps with greater skill. Alliteration is freely used; the queen is *mahādevī mahārājamātā mahārājapatāmahī*. What, however, is specially interesting is the appearance of mannerisms of the later Kāvya, used in a way which implies current familiarity with the themes. Thus the king is of like strength with the mountains Himavant, Meru, and Mandara, a brief allusion to the view that the king, like the Himālaya, possesses abundant treasures, like Meru is the centre of the world and overshadows it with his might, and, like Mandara, which the gods used as their churning stick when they churned the ocean, can produce and preserve Lakṣmī, the *fortuna regum*. The king again is compared with the heroes of the epic in a manner which preludes the frequent use of this theme made by Subandhu and Bāṇa. Finally, he is described as winning victory in a battle in which in wondrous wise the Wind, Garuḍa, Siddhas, Yakṣas, Rākṣasas, Vidyādharas, Bhūtas, Gandharvas, Cāraṇas, the sun, the moon, the Nakṣatras, and the planets take part. Thus early we find that confusion of the mortal and the supernatural which induces an alleged historian like Bilhaṇa to allow Çiva to intervene when needed in the fate of his patron.