Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c11.s2.16

c11.s2.16

Although offered as Kāvya, there are many features which indicate that in its narration Murāri's work follows the method and manner of the Purāṇas. We are told at the outset that the work was undertaken at the direction of Śrīvāsa (i. 1. 9), but the general framework (which is not consistently kept up, but resumed at various points in the course of the narrative) consists of the device of a narrator (Murāri) and a listener (Dāmodara Paṇḍita) common enough in the Purāṇas. The Śloka metre predominates being used, for running narrative, exclusively in as many as thirty-seven cantos (i. 2. 4, 6. 9. 11. 13, 14 : ii. 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 11-13, 17, 18; iii. 3. 7, 9. 13. 14. 18; iv. 3, 4, 8. 9. 11, 13, 17-19, 22-26) and partially in twenty-six cantos (i. 1, 3. 5, 7. 8; ii. 3, 4, 7; iii. 4-6, 11, 15, 17; iv. 1, 2, 5-7. 10, 12, 14-16, 20, 21). The other metres used in the remaining fifteen cantos, for the purpose of narration or description, are generally metres of eleven or twelve syllables of the Triṣṭubh-Jagati family, such as Sundari or Viyogini, Vamśathavila, Indravajrā, Upendravajrā or Upajāti, and Rathoddhatā. It is only sporadically that the fourteen-syllabled Vasantatilaka is employed, while longer metres like Sragdharā are found five times (i. 1. 9, 19, 20; ii. 7. 4; iv. 21. 5), Drutavilambita occurs only twice (ii. 7. 1-6; ii. 18. 33), and Śikhariṇī (i. 1. 25), Pṛthvī (iv. 10, 21-22) and Mandākrānta (iv. 10, 23, but the first Pāda is Śārdūlavikrīḍita!) are used only once each. No opportunity is missed for introducing the usual descriptive Kāvya-topics in the approved embellished manner, diction and metre (e. g. Lakṣmī's marriage in Vamśasthavila and Upajāti, i. 10; Śacī's lament on Lakṣmī's death in Viyoginī, i. 12; men and women thronging to have a sight of the young ascetic at Kaṇṭakapuri (Katwa) in Upajāti, iii. 1, etc.); but the work is ostensibly modelled on the Vaiṣṇava Purāṇas, and its poetic pretensions are hardly of a high order. Nevertheless, Murāri possesses considerable narrative skill and metrical facility, and his simple descriptions are often vivid and picturesque. His manner is very often direct and forcible, and wisely avoids the rhetorical elaboration of the later Kāvya.