South Indian Inscriptions

LITERATURE

poets, though dead, continued to live in this world in the form of Sētu. This was therefore the name of their work which was quite well known in the time of Daṇḍin.

... The poets and works eulogised in the introductory verses of the Avantisundarīkathā appear to have been mentioned in the chronological order. The aforementioned verse about the Sētu occurs immediately after that describing Sarvasēna’s Harivijaya and before another eulogising Kālidāsa. This work therefore appears to have been produced in the Vākāṭaka age. Since it was composed by fifty-six poets, it could not have been identical with the Sētubandha of Pravarasena II. Curious as it might appear, we have a similar name viz., Chhappaṇṇaya (Sanskrit, Shaṭpañchāśat) mentioned among those of Prakrit poets in the following verse of the Kuvalayamālā of Uddyotanasūri (778 A.C.)¹ :-

... ‘How can I take any steps, being like a simple deer, terrified by the roar of the lions, viz., Pālittaya, Sālāhaṇa and Chhappanṇaya ?’

... This verse speaks of three poets Pālittaya, Sālāhaṇa and Chhappaṇṇaya. Pālittaya (or Pādalipta) and Hāla are well-known Prakrit poets. Like them, Chhappaṇṇaya also was probably a Prakrit poet. The Kuvalayamālā eulogises him as follows:-

...‘What need be said about the Chhappaṇṇayas, the eminent poets, with whom even now a poet of clever sayings is compared in this world !’

...The first thing that strikes us in this eulogy is that Uddyotana has used the plural number in praising Chhappaṇṇaya. That this is not for the purpose of showing respect to the poet appears clear from other verses in which Uddyōtana has used the singular in referring to such great poets as Pālittaya, Hāla, Bāṇa, Dēvagupta, nay his own teacher Haribhadra. Chhappaṇṇaya, which means fifty-six, was therefore probably the name of a group of poets. These fifty-six poets probably formed a Kavi-maṇḍala and published a work under their collective name.

... As stated before, this Sētu could not have been identical with the Sētubandha. The latter is a Prakrit kāvya of the same type as the Kumārasambhava, Kirātārjunīya and Śiśupālavadha. Its several cantos have a unity of purpose and a uniformity of style such as one can hardly expect in a heterogeneous work composed by as many as fifty-six poets. Besides, none of the later writers who have referred to it have hinted that it was a compilation of verses composed by several poets. There must therefore have been another work named Sētu, which was of the type of an anthology. This is also suggested by the eulogy of Uddyōtana. He says that the fifty-six poets were famous for clever sayings (Chhēka-bhaṇitas) so much so that they became the standards of comparison for later poets. Their verses were probably of the same type as the Sanskrit subhāshitas, in which by means of a few strokes they depicted an interesting situation.

... It is not unlikely that there was such an anthology in the Vākāṭaka age. As we have seen, the Vākāṭaka princes Sarvasēna and Pravarasēna II composed gāthās which were later incorporated into the Gāthāsaptaśatī. Several other poets, not known to history, whose gāthās are included in the Gāthāsaptaśatī, must have flourished in the same age. It should therefore cause no surprise if a compilation of such gāthās was made in that age under the name of Sētu. The anthology seems to have become current as the work of fifty-six poets who
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¹ See C.D Dalal’s Notes to his edition of the Kāvyamīmāṁsa (G.O.S.)