A History of Indian Literature v3.c35.s8.162

v3.c35.s8.162

¹ The tale forms a part of the poem in the editions by Ariel and in Km. and is narrated in the commentaries too. The name of the princess, in the ed. Ariel is Yāminīpūrṇatilakā, daugher of the Pañcāla king Madanābhirāma; against this, the princess in the Km. edition is Śaśikalā, Candrakalā or Candralekhā (all the three meaning “digit of the moon”), a daughter of King Virasiṁha of Mahilapattana. Hence in the Km. edition also the title Candralekhāsakti Bilhaṇakāvya, “Bilhaṇa’s Poem of his Affection for Candralekhā”. In the MSS from Gujarat the beloved is one Caurā (i.e. Cauḍā or Cāpotkaṭā) princess. The commentator Gaṇapati, who, moreover, mentions Pañcāśikā as a “fragmentary poem (khaṇḍakāvya), speaks about a Brāhmaṇa Caura as a world-famous man, who had sensuous association with a princess. Perhaps this poem is actually a fragment of another poem, of which the theme was love between a thief (caura) and a princess, and in which the poet put the verses into the mouth of a thief brought to the place of execution. In a commentary, written in 1798, Rāma Tarkavāgīśa Bhaṭṭācārya explains the stanzas as constituting an invocation to the goddess Kālikā of a prince Sundara, son of Guṇasāgara of Caurapallī, who composed it before King Virasiṁha, while he was awaiting his sentence of death on account of his secret association with Vidyā, the daughter of the king. When the king heard the poem, induced by Kālikā, he offered him his daughter for the purpose of making her his wife. Cf. Eggeling, Ind. Off. Cat. VII, p. 1524 f. In the edition Haeberlin Sundara is mentioned as the author. In the Bengali poem Vidyāsundara of Bhāratacandra, the chief court-poet of Rāja Kṛṣṇacandra (18th century), the story of love that existed between Princess Vidyā and Prince Sundara is narrated, and here Sundara describes in stanzas (that correspond to the stanzas of the Cauripañcāśikā) his love for Vidyā. The verses, however, are capable of being interpreted in two different ways and being taken simply as constituting a prayer-hymn to the goddess Kālī. Cf. Dinesa Candra Sen, History of Bengali Language and Literature, p. 650. f.