पृष्ठ:पउमचरिउ.djvu/२५

vi PAUMACARIU and, along with the first part, I hope to place them in the form of the second part of that work in the hands of the learned readers of the Singhi Jain Series. The present work of Svayambhű has already attracted attention of several scholars and critics in Hindi and Gujarati. For instance in his Apabhramśa selections called 'Apabhramsa-pathāvali' the Gujarati scholar Prof. M. C. Modi has included a few Sandhis from both the epics of Svayambhū. Similarly the famous Buddhist scholar and Hindi author Pandit Rahula Samkritya- yana has given a prominent place to the Paümacariu of Svayambhū and has included several Sandhis from it in the first volume of his anthology of Hindi poetry called Hindi Kāvya Dhārā. In 1943 during his halt at Bombay prior to his departure to Russia, Pandit Samkritya- yana stayed with me at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan for about a couple of months and at that time he had an occasion to examine the good collection of Apabhramsa literature that was with me. He was quite impressed with it and took down numerous excerpts, notes, etc., which material he utilized in preparing the first volume of Hindi Kävya Dhārā (Hindi Poetic Anthology) intended to serve as a sort of convenient Apabhramśa reader for the Hindi students. In his introductory remarks to that work my learned friend Rahula Samkrityayana has made certain observations which are worthy of note for all students of this subject. He says: "gare gent gran format कविताके पांचों युगोंके जितने कवियोंको हमने यहाँ संग्रहीत किया है, उनमें यह निस्संकोच कहा जा सकता है, कि स्वयंभू सब से बडा कवि है। वस्तुतः वह भारतके एक दर्जन अमर कवियोंमेंसे एक था। आश्चर्य और क्रोष दोनों होता है कि लोगोंने कैसे ऐसे महान कवि को भुला देना चाहा। (It can be said without hesitation that not only among the poets of this i.e. the first-period, but among those of all the five periods of Hindi poetry represented in the present anthology, Svayambhū was the greatest. In fact he was one of the dozen immortal poets of India. It is a matter of wonder and indignation that people could forget such a great poet.) As Mahāsthavira Pandit Rahula Samkrityayana has prepared his selections with a view to unfold rise and development of Hindi, we can quite understand why he regards Svayambhū as the leading pioneer among Hindi poets. Really speaking Svayambhū was the chief literary ancestor of Apabhramśa poets. Apabhrarnša being the source of early as well as modern forms of New Indo-Aryan lan- guages like Marathi, Hindi, Gujarati, Rajasthani, Bengali, Oriya, Assamese, Panjabi, etc., Svayambhu's poetry can be looked upon with equal propriety as the forerunner of Hindi poetry as that of the poetry of other vernaculars like Gujarati, Marathi, Rajasthani, Bengali, etc. Accordingly Svayambhū's work would prove very much useful to all students of New Indo-Aryan languages also.