North Indian Inscriptions

LITERATURE

mentions his ancestors−Chaṇḍapati, his son Sōllapēya and the latter’s son Sūra. To Sūra. To Sūra Sōḍḍhala was born from his wife Pampāvatī. This family enjoyed the patronage of the Chaulukya kings of Lāṭa. Sōḍḍhala lost his father in his boyhood. Then Gaṅgādhara, son of the then reigning king Gōggirāja[1] of Lāṭa, brought him up. Gōggirāja was succeeded by his son Kīrtirāja. His son Siṁharāja was a fellow-student of Sōḍḍhala. They studied under a teacher named Chandra. Sōḍḍhala gave evidence of poetic talent even in his student life. Later, as the political situation in Lāṭa changed,[2] Sōḍḍhala migrated to Sthānaka (modern Thāṇā), the capital of the Northern Śilāhāras. He became a court-poet of the Silāhāra king Chhittarāja. Once upon a time Sōḍḍhala composed a beautiful verse containing to word pradīpa. Being pleased with it, Chhittarāja gave him the title of Kavi-pradīpa.[3] Chhittarāja’s brothers Nāgārjuna and Mummuṇirāja, who succeeded him one after the other, also treated Sōḍḍhala with great respect.

.. At Sthānaka Sōḍḍhala received a cordial invitation for return to Lāṭa from Vatsarāja, the successor of the aforementioned Kīrtirāja, who was a dear friend of the Śilāhāra king Mummuṇi. So he went back to Lāṭa. Once upon a time, while Vatsarāja was sitting in his sabhā with his courtiers and poets around him, a merchant showed him a collection of pearls. The king then uttered the following verse:[4]

.. (What is the use of these stray pearls ? If you make a necklace of these, it will give us rare pleasure.) Sōḍḍhala at once understood the suggested sense of the verse. But he kept quiet. When he went home, he said to himself, “The king has, indeed, rebuked me. He wants to suggest to me that instead of wasting my energy in composing stray verses of the muktaka type, I should compose a great kāvya. Now, if such a kāvya is to be composed, it should rather be of the champū type than of the gadya or the padya type.” For the composition of such a work he repaired to one of his villages where he would get the necessary facilities as well as tranquility. He completed the work in a few days and then started for the capital of Lāṭa with the kāvya tied in a piece of cloth. On his way through a dense forest he noticed a very white shrine of Goddess Sarasvatī.[5] He entered it and praised the goddess with an extempore verse. As it was then evening and his fellow-travellers had gone ahead, he sat down in the mattavāraṇaka (aisle)[6] of the maṇḍapa of the shrine for rest. He then noticed two beautiful statues of door-keepers. one on each side of the garbha-gṛiha. At night there arose a bright flame of light, without being fed by oil. Immediately thereafter, there issued from the statues two heavenly beings wearing the sacred thread. They praised the goddess with an extempore verse and then sat in the oppo-

.. Soḍḍhala has given considerable information about his ancestors, fellow-students, friends and contemporaries in th present work. His family originally belonged to Lāṭa (Southern Gujarāt). It held the important office of the Dhruva or Revenue Collector of the following among other divisions –Sikkarahārīya-72, Vāhirihāra-700, and Annāpallīya-70.[3] Sōḍḍhala
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[1] This name is given as Gōgirāja in the edition of the Udayasundarīkathā (see Errata at the end), but it occurs as Gōggirāja in inscriptions. See Bhandarkar’s List of Northern Inscriptions, Nos. 1088 and 1092.
[2] This may have been due to the raids of the Chaulukyas of Aṇahilapāṭaṇa. Mūlarāja is known to have killed Bārappa, the father of Gōggirāja, and annexed Lāṭa to his dominions. See Chaulukyas of Gujarāt by A.K. Majumdar, pp. 28 f.
[3] Such soubriquets are traditionally known to have been borne by some other Sanskrit poets. Thus, Kālī- dāsa was known as Dīpaśikhā-Kālidāsa on account of his verse in the Raghuvaṁśa (VI, 67) and Bhāravi as Chhattra-Bhāravi on account of a verse (V. 39) in the Kirātārjunīya.
[4] Udayasundarīkathā, p. 12.
[5] This shrine is described as having been built by Bhārgava. So it may not have been very distant from Bhṛigukachchha. Sōḍḍhala describes it as situated on the way from Śūrpāraka to the capital of Lāṭa.
[6] Sōḍḍhala has used this word many times in the Udayasundarikathā. Mattavāraṇī, from which it is derived, denoted ‘a wing’ in Bharata’s Nātyaśāstra as shown by us elsewhere. Mattavāraṇaka used here and in other passages of Sōḍḍhala’s work seems to denote ‘an aisle’ separated from the middle portion of a hall by a row of pillars.

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