Advanced in years, though free from old age. Pleasure to the eyes, though causing pain. Nine cubits in height, though seven cubits tall. How is it that you bear such a body? [How can you bear such a body, in which your vows are well advanced, which is free from old age, which has pacified…
Continue ReadingHow is it that, despite being the jewel of masth produced by a royal elephant, you don’t fetch even the price of a pearl? [How is it that you merit being done reverence to, the crown-jewel of those who have no desire?] How is it, Lord, that despite being the abode of abundant jewels, you…
Continue ReadingContinuing with the text that I introduced earlier, here are verses 2 and 3. As with all of the verses of Dhanapāla’s hymn to Mahāvīra, they contain an apparent contradiction that is resolved by reading the Prakrit text differently. How is it that, despite having destroyed the four passions, you do not destroy the passions?…
Continue ReadingI happened upon a very useful book by Hiralal Rasikdas Kapadia (Kavīśvara Śrīdhanapāla Viracita R̥ṣabhapaṁcāśikā ane Vīrastutiyugalarūpa Kr̥tikalāpa, Bombay 1989) which contains three works of the poet Dhanapāla. One of them is a hymn to Vardhamāna in Prakrit (Śrīvīrastutiḥ) which utilizes the ornament of virōdhābhāsaḥ or “apparent contradiction.” It begins as follows: Having praised the…
Continue ReadingThis is a mandākrānta verse from the introduction of Dhanapāla’s Tilakamañjarī, which I am reading with a few colleagues, in praise of King Bhōja of Dhārā: Blessed are those trees that drop heaps of flowers from their branches in worship upon those liṅgas, the stumps, which are bathed every morning by drops of water from…
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