पृष्ठ:पउमचरिउ.djvu/८९

48 PAUMACARIU modating nature of the epic-form in view. Svayambhú seems to have a sure eye for all such points in the narrative which would give full scope to the play of his poetic fancy. The 18,000 gran- thāgras of the Padmacarita have been brought down to 12,000 in the Paümacariu and thus it has become comparable in extent to Vimalasūri's epic. First we take up the omissions and a bridgements. Part of RP. IV (topic, sūtrakanthänām utpattik), the whole of RP. XI (Marutta-yajña-dhvansana-padānugābhidhānam) and the long sermon covering the whole of RP. XIV. are totally cut out by Svayambhū, excepting the two lines (PC. 15 5 9 b and 15 9 11. passingly referring to the topic of RP. XI and one Kadavaka (PC. 17 18) summing up RP. XIII. Svayambhū has also omitted the table of contents given in RP. I and has treated the topics of Kșetra- varnana and Kala-varṇana (RP. II) quite briefly. Similarly the Harişeņa episode, running over 130 stanzas in RP. (VIII 272-401) is ruthlessly compressed by him in two Kadavakas (PC. 11 1-2) and almost everywhere the topic of purva-bhava-kathana is sk pped over: The account of the previcus existences (1) of Toyadavähana and Sahasrākşa and their father Púrpaghana and Sulocana (RP. V 96-141), (2) of Bhima and Bhagirathi (RP. V 286-294), (3) of Mahāraksas (RP. V 343-359), (4) of Madhu (RP. XII 22-69), 15) of Indra (RP. XIII 54-66). Only in two cases (PC. 6 15-=RP. VI 314- 328 and P.C. 19 4-5=RP. XVII 140-198) Svayambhú chooses to relate the pūrvabhavas. In the same manner it can be shown that many of the lengthy descriptions in RP. have been considerably shortened by Svayambhü and most of the sermons omitted. We shall now point out the additions and largements affected by Svayambhū which slightly make up the big losses in bulk detailed above. It is quite obvious that the purpose in coming Paü- macariu being primarily religious, there was no question of taking any sort of liberty with the traditional story. As such there was no scope for invention or artistic designing and variation as far as the subject matter was concerned. The poet -njoyed freedom regarding stylistic embellishments, descriptions and d piction of various sentiments and he could expatiate on particular incidunts he took fancy for. The whole of PC. XVI dealing with the topics of Arthasastra is not found in the same context in the RP. and is thus an innovation. But most of the cases pertain not to innovation but to alteration. Many a time only the suggestion or bare facts are availed of from Ravişena, but the development and the presentation are quite original. Of course as the table of correspondences (see Appendix III) demonstrate Ravişena's work forms the basis for Svayumbhu's work and cases of borrowing ideas and expressions are numerous, but this dependence is out of choice and not out of necessity, as we can judge from the high artistic worth of those passages where Svayam- bhu's poetic fancy chose to fly with its own wings, and even when the suggestion is taken from Ravişeņa, its working over exhibits the hand of a great poet. Part of the descriptions of nature and water-sport in PC. XIV, description of battles at various places es the portion PC. VIII 4-8), depiction of some incidents of tense emotion in the Añjanā episode (in PC. XVIII-XIX), the duels between Bharata and Bahubali (in PC. V) etc. can be cited as illustrations. In short it can be said that of the high poetic merits en-