मानसोल्लास: भारतीय सांस्कृतिक विश्वकोश - Mana Sollasa : Indian Cultural Encyclopedia (Set of 5 Parts)

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The first installment of the long-announced Manasollasa, otherwise known as the Abhilasitarthachintamani, which purports to have been composed by the great Western Chalukya King Bhulokamalla Somesvara, son of Vikramaditya VI, is now offered to the public. It is a voluminous work, extending to about 8000 Granthas, and is divided into five Vimsatis, each containing 201 Adhyayas of chapters of unequal length, some chapters again including several subsections. The whole work is thus divided into one hundred chapters, dealing with one hundred different topics on the necessities and written for the instruction of the members of royal families. The first volume represents two among the five Vimsatis, and comprises 40 Adhyayas or chapters.
The present edition is based on the following five MSS:
A. Belonging to the Baroda Central Library. It is a complete press-copy prepared with the help of three MSS.
B. Belonging to the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Poona. It contains 109 leaves and is, though incomplete, a very good copy.
C. Complete though resent.
D. Complete, written in Saka 1592, Leaves are very brittle and the MS requires very careful handling. It offers good readings.
E. Incomplete; in the middle about 50 leaves are wanting. It is older than D. On the last leaves the ink has faded.
The last three MSS belong to the Bikaner Durbar.
The authorship of the Manasollasa is attributed, in the 9th sloka on page 2 and the colophon, to the Chalukya King Somesvara, surnamed Bhulokamalla and Sayasrayakulatilaka. A reference to sloka 371 on page 62 will, however, make it evident that this attribution is incorrect. In this sloka Somesvara is himself made the standard of comparison, and no anther would be guilty of so flagrant a piece of vanity. It is therefore probable that the book was composed in his Court by some prodigiously learned and well informed man, thoroughly acquainted with the royal household, royal necessities and royal whims¹.
King Somesvara is the son of Vikramaditya VI, and belongs to the line of the Western Chalukyas whose capital was at Kalyani. Aufrecht in his Catalogues Catalogorum fixes the period of his reign as 1127-1138. In Barnett's Antiquites of India the date is 1126 1138. The date of composition of this work seems to be 1052 Saka (1131 A. D.) as the sloka 61 on page 34 while giving the Dhruvanka mentions Friday as the first day of the month of Chaitra when the Saka year 1051 had elapsed.
It is generally believed that Somesvara ascended the throne in A.D. 1127; but the inscription recording the grant of land made by Mahamndalesvara Marasimhadevarasa to the temple of Manikyadeva containing an image of Ekasaleya Parsvanatha in the 6th year of the reign of Somesvara Bhulokamalla in the year Saka (1052 corresponding to A. D. 1130-31) shows that the date of his accession cannot be 1127; it must be 1124-25. The real date of Somesvara's accession therefore is a matter of controversy which may better be left in the hands of the historians and antiquarians for solution. The date of session, whether 1124 of 1127, does not, however, materially come in conflict with the date given as Dhruvanka in the Manasollasa already mentioned.