अवन्तिसुन्दरीकथासारः /5

INTRODUCTION
 
iii
 

 
iii
 
found in the manuscript of Nāmasanṅgrahamālā by one

Appaya Dikşita. As no better copy had been forthcoming,

a careful edition based on the two fragments was published in

the Trivandrum Sanskrit Series, No. 172 (1954).[^1]
 
The Kathāsāra,[^¹
 
The Kathāsāra] in the present edition too,¹ in the present edition too, incomplete but

better than the one issued in 1924. The work divides the run-

ning narrative of the original into paricchedas and carries it up

to Upahāravarman's intrigue with Kalpasundarī in the third

Ucchväāsa of the Dasśakumāra. The author tells us with com-

mendable modesty that he has no claim to literary finish and

that he recounts in a brief compass the story of the Avanti-

sundarī, for the love of telling good tales (I. 9-10). His

summary is in the main found to be faithful not only to the

Avantisundarī so far published but also to the Daśakumāra,

with a quarter of which it overlaps. It is written in a simple

style, indenting often on the words of the original. It is anonym-

ous and employs the word 'aānanda' as a mark in the last

stanza of each canto. Bhoja in his Sṛnṅgāraprakāśa says that

a poet called Pañcaśikha used the word 'aānanda' as a mark in

the last stanza of each canto of his work Šūdrakakathaā. The

Kathāsāra is obviously a different work and will remain
anonymous until further researches disclose the name of the

anonymous until further researches disclose the name of the
In the absence, however, of a complete original, it

will be a source of information, in regard to Dandṇḍin's prose

work.
 
author
The Daśakumāra is a trunk without beginning or ending
and its very title is an anomaly.
 
The Dasakumāra is a trunk without beṇḍin's originning or ending
and its very title is an anomaly. Dandin's original and the
al and the
Kathāsāra apply the term 'Kumāra' to the prince Raājavahana
āhana
alone. Even if it is taken in the sense of 'a boy' the title is a

misfit; for Dandṇḍin's scheme of the story contains not ten but

eleven boys, the prince and his ten companions. The

Puūrvapīṭhikā leaves out Devarakṣita, one of the companions,

the son of the pious Satyaśarman who leaves the 'Flower

City', his native land, and sets up a family in an agrahāra in the

Kaveriāverī delta; it also personates Somadatta, the son of Brah-

madatta, the king's family priest, as the son of Satyavarman.

In Dandṇḍin's original as summarised by the Kathäāsāra, Deva-

rakṣita figures as a watcher of the entrance of the cave through

which the prince enters the nether worlds. It appears that when

the earlier portion was not available and the Purvapitūrvapīṭhika was
 
ā was
 
[^1.] For a detailed review of the Avantisundarī, see also Dr. V.

Raghavan, J. of the Travancore Uni. Mss. Library, v. VII, end.