A History of Indian Literature v3.c35.s9.73

v3.c35.s9.73

An imitation of Bhartṛhari's Vairāgyaśataka is the Śāntiśataka, “The Hundred of Peace of Soul²” of Śilhaṇa³, who also came from Kashmir, but carried his literary activities in Bengal. Some of his verses are found also in Bhartṛhari and one of his stanzas is found also in the Nāgānanda of Harṣadeva. A great majority of the verses are, however, such as are found in anthologies other then the Śāntiśataka. Since Silhaṇa himself says that he “wrote” (*vidadhe*) the work, in the opinion of W., he is to be considered as the author and not as a compiler of the aphoristic stanzas, in case he had no intention to cite accurately. The Śāntiśataka is a piece of pure religious poetry in which the hollowness of life and the grandeur of renunciation of the world and of the life of ascetics have been described in a considerably monotonous manner. Many of the stanzas of Bhartṛhari have not been borrowed verbatim, but they have been modified. Some of the alterations have been made on account of Bhartṛhari's considering Śiva as the Highest God and Silhaṇa's view being that Viṣṇu is the Supreme God. As in all other works of this type, the manuscripts differ from one another very strongly, so that it cannot be said with certainty as to which of the verses belong to the original collection and which have been interpolated⁴.