History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v1.c6.s85.2

v1.c6.s85.2

After invoking deities the work starts with the *praśasti* of the king and his family (pp. 2-11). Descent is traced to the Sun himself through Daśaratha, Rāma and his sons. Kapilendra was the founder of the Gajapati family whose son was Puruṣottama. His queen was Rupāmbikā. Pratāparudradeva or Vīra-Rudra-deva was the son of Puruṣottama. He is spoken of as having given protection to Sultan (Suratrāṇa) Husanshah who threw himself on his mercy.¹⁰⁰³ In the colophons¹⁰⁰⁴ the king is styled Gajapati, Gauḍeśvara (king of Gauḍa), lord of Kalubariga (modern Gulbarga) in the Karṇāṭaka country of nine crores (probably of revenue) and as the protector of Sultan Husanshah of Jamunāpura. It is significant that the same titles are applied to Puruṣottama¹⁰⁰⁵ in his Poṭavaram grant of *śake* 1412 (1490 A. D.) and in other inscriptions. Pratāparudradeva, while ruling his capital¹⁰⁰⁶ Kaṭakanagarī, called together an assembly of *Paṇḍits* and compiled an extensive digest of civil and religious law. The royal author feels qualms of conscience on the question of eulogising himself and his family but stifles them easily by saying that a poet can also be an appreciative critic of his own productions.¹⁰⁰⁷ He boasts that he composed the work for saving scholars the trouble of bringing harmony among the conflicting dicta of Vijñānayogī, Aparārka, Bhāruci and others, that there was no work that could equal his own and that his literary effort would make his predecessors' works afford illustrations of the maxim that when a certain purpose is served by one the existence of others is superfluous.¹⁰⁰⁸ Then it is said that the vyavahārakāṇḍa was first taken in hand even before the ācārakāṇḍa following the special desire of the king Vīrarudra Gajapati.¹⁰⁰⁹ But it appears from references in the vyavahārakāṇḍa itself that before that part was finished the ācārakāṇḍa had been completed.¹⁰¹⁰ The Sarasvatīvilāsa, being a work composed under the express orders of a king for the benefit of his subjects, makes the nearest approach to the Austinian conception of law as a command addressed by political superiors to political inferiors and enforced by a sanction.