I was reorganizing my notes for an unpublished anthology of Prakrit verse by one Vairōcana (a Buddhist) and I came across the following gīti verse (no. 29, of 448): दुल्लहसुअणमिलावो उच्चलिउं अहव उच्चलावेउं ।जाण मणे विप्फुरए को ताण समो हु णीरसो भुअणे ॥ २९ ॥ dullaha-suaṇa-milāvō uccaliuṁ ahava uccalāvēuṁ ~jāṇa maṇē vipphuraē kō tāṇa samō…
Continue ReadingVerse 191 in the Gāhāsattasaī reads: ciraḍiṁ pi aṇāantō lōā lōēhĩ gōravabbhahiā sōṇāratulē vva ṇirakkharā vi khandhēhĩ ubbhanti People who don’t even know the alphabet [?] are popularly taken to be worthy of honor. They’re like a goldsmith’s scales: even though they are unlettered, they’re carried on one’s shoulders. The comparison in this verse depends…
Continue ReadingThe 10th-century poet Dhanapāla, whom I have written about a lot on this blog lately, includes an early reference to the game of chess (actually I don’t know how early it is, relative to other evidence — I am sure there has been some scholarship on this that I am not aware of) in one…
Continue Readingiha paṭhitam udāraṁ vācakair gīyamānaṁiha likhitam ajasraṁ lēkhakaiś cāru kāvyaṁgatavati mitrē mitratāṁ puṣpadantēbharata tava gr̥hē ’smin bhāti vidyāvinōdaḥ Here readers recite properly in song.Here scribes are always writing out beautiful poems.Since you’ve become friends with Puṣpadanta, Bharata,the diversions of learning are taking place at your house. A mālinī verse in Puṣpadanta’s Mahāpurāṇu (Apabhramsha, 965 CE),…
Continue Readingता सुक्कपाअवब्भंतरुग्गओ हुअवहो व्व मह मअणो । चिंतासमीरणुद्दीविओ व्व हिअअम्मि पज्जलिओ ॥ Then, like a fire that has shot up into the branches of a dry tree, desire ignited within my heart, inflamed by the wind of anxious thought. From Kōūhala’s Līlāvaī, when the titular character tells her friend, Vicittalēhā, about the effect that a…
Continue ReadingDhanapāla, the Sanskrit and Prakrit poet associated with the Paramara kings, is known to have written a few Apabhramsha works as well. One of them, the Satyapurīya-śrīmahāvīra-utsāhaḥ (in Apabhramsha: Saccaüri-vīra-ucchāhu), is cited somewhat frequently in secondary literature—not because of any great scholarly interest in the image of Vardhamāna that once stood at Sanchore in Rajasthan,…
Continue ReadingThi is a repost, upon request, from my old blog at Harvard, which I have since taken down, since I did not find the ‘OpenScholar’ software easy to use. I have corrected a few mistakes and added some more information. The most common metaphor for a “good” mixture of language in South Asia is “jewel-coral”…
Continue ReadingThese verses, the culmination of Dhanapāla’s contradictory praise, constitute a syntactically-connected pair (a yugalam) that involves a number of references to the Jain scriptures. How is it that this is your teaching, Teacher of the World? It is adorned by the beauty of the glances from an even number of eyes, yet it has the…
Continue ReadingHow is it that your voice is the abode of marine life, though it is not full of the beauty of sea-monsters,not rich in fish, without cranes or ducks, and always without many conches? [How is it that your speech is attended by the thunder of the clouds, filled with streams of nectar, unconsumed by…
Continue ReadingHow it is, Conqueror, that you make available to living beings in this world an auspicious happiness which is both wholesome and not, in which there is both eternal knowledge and no knowledge at all? [How is it, Conqueror, that you make available a cure to living beings in this world who are sick and…
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