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mean capacity, escape stepping into that path which even poets like Kālidāsa[१] were not able to avoid ? But a poem that is replete with good matter loses none of its value for a few commonplaces of expression,”.
The poem begins, as is usual with Sanskrit authors, with invocations addressed to several deities, and the author has been at the pains of making the invocations seem applicable to both the Hindu gods and some of the Tirthankaras of the Jainas. This procedure calls for remark. Nayachandra Sūri, as his name implies, is a Jain by persuasion, and his seeming to invoke blessings at the hands of the most prominent members of the orthodox Hindu pantheon is to be explained either by the freedom of thought so characteristic of the age in which the author lived, when the narrow and bigoted intolerance even of the Muslim had begun to appreciate the beauties of the allegorical language of the Hindu popular religion, or by the strong desire of writing dwayartha (having two meanings') verses, with which the author seems possessed.”[२]
- ↑ Perhaps our author had in view the following lines of Dhanan-Jaya:–-
अपशब्दशतं माघे भारवौ तु शतत्रयम् ।
कालिदासे न गण्यते कविरेको धनंजयः ॥ - ↑ Probably everybody has heard of the Rāghava Páñdaviya Kāvya, every line of which can be so construed as to apply to either Räma or the Pándavas, at the option of the reader. I have recently been shown a Kávya called the Sapta Sandhan Mahakavya, by Megha Vijaya Gani, a learned Jain of recent times, every verse of which can be made to apply alike to Rāma, Krishna, and Jinendra. In thể present Kầvyạ the first sloka of tha Nắndi is addressed to tho Paranjyotis—‘the diving flame,'—a manifestation of the divine being in whom both Hindus and Jainas, especially the Kovali Jainas, believe. The second sloka is addressed to Nābhibhū, which may mean the Bramhá of the Hindus, or the son of Nābhi (Rishabha Deva), the first Tirthankara of the Jainas. The third is addressed to Šri Pārśva, whom the Hindus may take for Vishnu, the Jainas for Srt Pārśvanātha, the 23rd Tirthankara. The 4th sloka is addressed to Šuukura Viravibhu, which may mean dither Mahādeva or Mahāvīra, the 24th Jain Tirthankara. The fifth verse is addressed to Bhāsvān Sašānti, who may either stand for the Sun, or Śānti, the 16th Jain Tirthankara. The sixth is addressed to Samudra Janman, which may be either the Moon, or Neminâth, son of Samudra, the 22nd Jain Tirthankara.
