253 ART. IX.—The Janakiharana of Kumaradasa. By F. W. THOMAS. THE history of this little-known work is remarkable. No manuscript of it has yet been discovered, and on the continent of India the only traces of its existence consist in the facts that a few of its verses are quoted in two Sanskrit anthologies, the Qarngadharapaddhati and the Subhasitavall, and in the Aucityavicaracarca of Ksemendra, and that the author is coupled with Kalidasa in a memorial verse of Rajac.ekhara— Janakiharanam kartum Raghuvamce sthite sati kavih Kumaradasac ca Ravanac ca yadi ksamah. The Singhalese literature, however, has preserved to us a 8anna or word-for-word gloss of the first fourteen cantos and of the fifteenth in part, from which gloss it has been found possible to piece together a text which cannot diverge very far from the original. The first attempt at such a re- construction was made by a Singhalese pandit for James d'Alwis, who, in his " Descriptive Catalogue of Sanskrit, Pali, and Singhalese Literary Works of Ceylon," gives, pp. 191-2, a specimen of ten verses so brought to light. But for the recovery of all the surviving cantos we are indebted to K. Dharmarama Sthavira. In the year 1891 this scholar published at Peliyagoda in Ceylon both text and Sanna with a valuable introduction. This work is in Singhalese character throughout. But in 1893 there appeared at Calcutta a nagarl text with a few notes compiled by the late pandit Haridasa Qastrl, M.A., Director of Public Instruction in the Jeypore State, and published after his death by Kalipada Bandhyopadhyaya, Principal of the Sanskrit College at Jeypore. The latter (which, however, Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Warwick, on 21 May 2018 at 04:54:39, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00028355 254 THE JANAKIHARANA OF KUMARADASA. has not the value of an independent restoration) was reviewed by Professor Rhys Davids in this Journal for 1894, pp. 623-4. Dharmarama's edition was noticed in vol. iv of the Orientalist, pp. 78 sqq., and was used by Professor Leumann for the purpose of his discussion of the work in the Vienna Oriental Journal, vol. vii, 1893, pp. 226-232. Two circumstances give to Kumaradasa's poem a special importance. The first is the native tradition, not seriously questioned, and accepted by Geiger in his recently published work on the Singhalese Language and Literature, which identifies the author with the King Kumaradasa, or Kumara- dhatusena, who reigned over Ceylon during the years 517-526 A.D. It is thus the earliest Ceylonese work in Sanskrit. Secondly, there is the tradition making him a friend and contemporary of Kalidasa, for the details of which it will be sufficient to refer to Dharmarama's intro- duction and to Professor Rhys Davids' article in this Journal for 1888, pp. 148-9. For these reasons, and because the poem is written in a style of some difficulty, accentuated by the lack of a Sanskrit commentary, I have thought it worth while to call attention to some of its numerous peculiarities. The reader will find appended a short abstract of the contents of the poem, as experience shows that even in the case of better known Itavyas such a conspectus is of some utility. What amount of confidence can be placed in the text of a poem composed in complicated metres and pieced together from a commentary? Professor Leumann, who has discussed this question in the article above referred to, arrives at the conclusion that " the insignificance of the variants proves for the text a greater degree of certainty than could have been expected." This conclusion, based on a comparison of the seven cited verses (i, 29 and 32; iii, 2; ix, 12; xi, 63, 71, and 92), seems beyond question, though complicated by the fact that four of these were known to the author of the reconstruction. Two classes of divergences are to be distinguished, those due to the editor, who could not fail Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Warwick, on 21 May 2018 at 04:54:39, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00028355 THE JA.NAKIHARANA OF KUMARADASA. 255 sometimes to arrange the words supplied by the Sanna in an order different from the original, and those due to variations of reading in the Sanna itself. The former case is illustrated in ix, 12, and the latter in several instances, of which I will refer only to one, viz., i, 29, reading as follows :— Garngadharapaddhati. Dharmarama. paqyan hato manmathabanapataih ; tasya hatam manmathabanapatail.i qakto vidhatum na nimllya caksuh ; ijakyam vidhatum na nimilya caksuli iira vidhatra hi krtau katham tav urii vidhatra nu krtau katham tilv ity asa tasyam sumater vitarkah. (ity asa tasyam sumater vitarkah). As Professor Leumann has pointed out, the Sanna reads dhdtrd for vidhatra, and supplies a word drstau, for which Dharmarama can find no place in the text. The latter difficulty Haridasa Qastri has removed by inserting the word in place of tasyah, rendering it by dargane sati. Now it is certain that the text supplied by the Qarngadharapaddhati alone gives the general sense, namely, that indicated by my punctuation: "' If he looked, he was smitten with love's arrows: with his eyes shut he could not create: how then did the creator frame her thighs': thus were the wise at fault." We have in fact a poetical syllogism in due form, and a rendering in effect the same as that of Auf recht (ap. Leumann): " An intelligent man can reasonably doubt how the creator could have framed her thighs: he could not do it without shutting his eyes, since if he looked he would have been at once hit by the arrows of love." I think, however, that the above rendering, taking hato and gakto as finite verbs, has a distinct superiority. The question of reading is now clearer. Hatam MUST BE a mistake for hato. On the other hand, pagyan and drstau are variants between which we may reasonably doubt, and I suggest that both are derived from an original drstva, while tasyah is a corruption of pagyan. As regards gakyam and gakto, again, there is liberty of choice. But when we observe that the neuter would account by attraction for the reading hatam, and that the genderless use of gakyam is Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Warwick, on 21 May 2018 at 04:54:39, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00028355 256 THE JANAKIHABANA OF KTJMAKADASA. specially provided for in treatises on Alankara (Vamana, v. 2. 25), further that, as we shall point out, Kumaradasa was a poet devoted to grammatical niceties, we cannot but incline to the view that this was the word which he used. The question of dhatra and vidhatra, hi and nu (? uru hi dhatra nu katham krtau tau), I will not linger over, but will merely draw the conclusion that the sources of the poem point to the existence of ordinary differences of reading in addition to the special divergences due to the reconstructor. Professor Leumann has also called attention to- the desirability of securing a greater number of MSS. of the Sanna. We are fortunately enabled to continue this test of the reconstructed poem by the aid of further verses not known to the editors. For in the Subhasitavali we find a number of these ascribed to a poet Kumaradatta, and all these verses are to be traced in the JanaMharana. The identification of the two poets may hereafter, should further information be obtained concerning Kumaradatta, prove of some importance. In the meanwhile I will quote the verses along with one other anonymously cited by the same author :— Ktunaradatta. Junaliiharana. vimalam ambu nipiya nadi^ataih salilabharanirantaritodarah Heads vvmalavari, iiadi^atain and klamam ivamibhavann atipanajam nbhivahann (xi, 53). giritate nisasada payodharah. " bhuvanadrstinirodhakaram krtam " ravikaran uparudhya krtam maya ravikaran uparadhya maya tamab bhuvanadrstinirodhi tamas tadid vilasitena nihanti muhur muhus vilasitena nihanti muhur muhur " tadid" itiva rarasa rusa ghanah. ghanaitivararasa rasa ghanah (xi, 59). divi nive^itatamravilocana navaghananilakampitakuntalab Heads diqi and transposes 11. 3-4 visasrjuh saha varida^karair (xi, 60). uayanavari ciram pathikanganah. navavibodhamanoharaketakl - kusumagarbhagatah saha kantaya The same (xi, 73). aviditanilavrstibhayagamab sukham a^eta ciraya (jillnmkhah. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Warwick, on 21 May 2018 at 04:54:39, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00028355 THE JANAKIHARANA OF KTJMARADASA. 257 Kiimaradatta. Janaklharana. <j««w»«vrstihate 'pi davanale 'pi davanale bhramararf/*«ftbhrto 'pi vanavallh samabhiviksya krcjanusamaprabha samabhiviksya kr<janusamaprabha na mumucur bhayam eva mrganganah. mumucur eva bhayam na mrganganah Subh3s., 1751-5. (xi, 75). maniprabhesu prativimbac,obhaya I Reads mrganka nimagnaya balatjaijankalekhaya visankuro varisu vancitatmana vicicchide varisu vancitatmana na rajahamsena punar vicicchide. na rajahamsena punar visankurah Subhas., 1812. (xii, 9). Kasyapi. lilagatir yatra nisargasiddha Reads gater atra (i, 28). matto na danti musito na hamsali itiva janghayugalam tadiyam cakre tulakotyadhirohanani. Subhas., 1559. These verses present the same features as the foregoing. In the second, third, fifth, and sixth we find differences of order. In all but the fourth there are differences of reading, and these not consistently in favour of one text or the other. In the first verse the reconstructed text is the simpler, and derives a support from the recurrence in v.