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The Epigrams Attributed to Bhartrhari / 103 Image 103 of 349 (Page 103)

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INTRODUCTION

identification. For the renunciation of the king, there is the Goralcsa
Kimiyagar legend dramatized in Hariharopadhyaya's Bhartrharinirveda,
while another reason is given in the rather doubtful explanation of the stanza
yam cintayāmi [311]. The former states that Bhartrhari's favourite queen
Pingala committed suicide on hearing false news of her husband's death; while
he mourned her, inconsolable, at the crematory the siddha Gorakṣanātha
restored twenty five Pingalas indistinguishable from each other, thus
converting the king to asceticism. The other is even sillier, stauza 311 being
uttered by the king in disgust when he finds the fruit of immortality he gives
his queen passed on to her paramour; the legend associates Bhartrhari with
Vikrama in some versions of the Vetālapancavimśati and the Simha-
sanadvātrimśik. Both stanza and explanation are very late additions to the
śatakatraya complex.

The story given by Merutunga as to Bhartrhari's being the son of a
Brahmin grammarian by a Sūdra mother seems plausible, for that would qualify
our poet to write his verse while excluding him from many of the Brahmanical
privileges. Unfortunately, this can be tracod in parallel forms such as the
Patañjalicaritam [KM 51], to show that the grammarian Bhartrhari is meant,
the whole story being a saga of the grammarians through Patañjali and
Candragomin. Ono may point to the two sections of the Sarvadarśanasam-
graha named after Panini and Patanjali. The identification of the
grammarian Patañjali with the author of the Yogasutras is known though
unquestionably false. For our purpose, it suffices to refute the general
tradition.

5. 3. Thes stanzas. We are driven by all this to draw our conclusion
from the stanzas themselves. I should have done this at the very start but for
au opinion current among otherwise respectable scholars [ which included the
late V. S. Sukthankar] that all Sanskrit literature is anonymous. Nothing
would, on this basis, be deducible from such verses. Others go further, to
maintain that the author identifies himself in turn with various types of
people, in order to demonstrate the futility of all walks of life, and to induce
renunciation. The last view, I hope, has been completely exploded by such
text-cr ticism as has been brought to bear on the MS apparatus, for the
vuragyuŝataku has unquestionably the thinnest support; the vairágya stanzas
sem to be among the last added to the collection. As for impersonation every
author must, if he achieves literary greatness, have convinced his reader of the
truth of some such penetration into other minds, but there is nothing in our
nuclear stanzas to show a deliberate identification by turn. No author can
disguise his fundamental training any more than he can write in a language
which he was never learned. Looked at from this point of view, the unity of
the stanzes is scen to rest essentially upon their tone. What strikes the
reider is an acuto observation of human nature, along with the distress
experienced by a man of letters without secure means of livelihood. The
unplaced stanza 4, as well as most of the contempt shown for the richi
in V stanzas clearly reflect this sort of helplessness. The literary physiognomy

of Bhartṛhari is then the physicgnomy of a whole class which kuew Sanskrit

✔

and experienced the same type of frustration. Even the Srigara shows

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