Hemacandra’s Treatment of the Alankara and Rasa Traditions

Summary

HEMACANDRA S TREATMENT OF THE ALAMKARA AND RASA TRADITIONS પ૪ M Kulkarni At the outset I sincerely thank the authorities of the L D Institute of Indology for inviting me 10 deliver lecture in Sri Hemacandra Nava atabdi Vyakhyanamzla organised under the auspicies of their Institute Acdrya Hemacandra the polymath 15 a precious gift of फ ट Jain community of Medieval Gujarat to our country He was a great man not બ of his age but of all ages He had profound knowledge of almost all branches of learning known to Medieval India and he himself contributed to them by writing authentic compendiums works which won पक the covetable title Kali kdla sarvajiia I pay homage to the sacred memory of this great Jain polymath savant Now I have been asked to speak on Hemcandra s Treatment છ the Alarhkara and Rasa Traditions With the Jate Prof R C Parikh I edited Hemacandra s Kdvydnusisana This co operative venture has દ history Prof Parikh had just about that time brought out his critical edition of Mammata s Kavyaprakdsa with the Samketa Commentary of Somedvara Bhatta which was till then unpublished Then I was working at the Gujarat College He gave me a complimentary 6૦ When 1 glanced th_r oug_h the pages of the Samketa Commentary I noticed question marks at a number of places indicating that those readings were corrupt I was prompted by these gquestion marks 10 a comparative study and I wrote a review article correcting a large number of passages by iden tifying their sources and gave it to Prof Parikh for pre view He was highly impressed by that review article and within a few days he invited me to join him as co editor in the task of bringing out a second revised _edition છ Hemcandra s Kavydnusdsana and 1 am happy 10 state that our edition has been welcomed by scholars in the field as a standard edition ully wutilised the opportunity provided by Prof Parikh studied critically and comprehensively the work and the fruit of this study was my paper 24૮ Seurces of Hemacandra s Kavydnusdsana This paper was greatly appreciated by an outstanding d laskdrika from Bengal Prof Siva Prasad પય કત who had earlier published his paper on Hemacandra and the Eleventh Century Pocticists of Kashmir in the Journal of the Asiatic Society Calcutta 1957 2 Hemacandra and The alamkara fradition