Sadukti-Karnamrta of Sridharadasa (An Old and Rare Book)

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The Sadukti-karnampta of Stidhara-dasa of Bengal is one of the carly Sanskrit anthologies. It gives a selection of more than two thousand stanzas of nearly five hundred works and authors, who flourished in or before 1205-6 A.D., its date of compilation; and as such it possesses an importance of its own. The compiler does not confine himself to Bengal; but his Vaisnava inclination makes him give a large number of Vaisnava stanzas which have been freely utilised in the later anthology of the Vaisnava Rupa Gosvamin.

The work was edited first by Ramavatar Sarma in the Bibliotheca Indica; but only two fascicules were published (1912-1921). The complete work edited by him was printed with an introduction and additional readings by Hardadatta Sarma, Lahore, 1933. This edition appears to have been chiefly based on the Serampore College Library manuscript, but no account is given of its manuscript material, and there is no critical apparatus. Two important manuscripts of the work, namely, those in the Asiatic Society of Bengal and Calcutta Sanskrit College, do not appear to have been utilised; and the method of editing can hardly be called critical.

In these circumstances, there was need of a fresh really critical edition of this important anthology. The present edition of Dr. Banerji attempts to remove these deficiencies and utilises fully the unutilised manuscript material available here in India and abroad. A full critical apparatus is given, and an attempt has been made to identify, as far as possible, the cited stanzas by tracing them to the other major anthologies or to the original texts from which they were taken.

Bengal's contribution to Sanskrit literature is vase and varied. As is well known, anthologies constitute a substantial portion of Sanskrit poetical literature. In the anthological literature Bengal's position is unique in the sense that, among the anthologies that have hitherto come to light, the Subbasita-ratnakosa, compiled by Vidyakara of Bengal, is the earliest. Vidyakara appears to have flourished sometime between the middle of the eleventh century A.D. and the middle of the twelfth.

The second notable anthologist of Bengal is Sridharadasa. Unfortunately, however, his anthology, the Sadukti- karnamrta, has not yet been critically edited. The first attempt to edit the work was made by Ramavatara Sarma as early as the beginning of the present century. Only two fascicules of this edition were published in the Biblio- theca Indica Series (New Series No. 1343 and 1360), Calcutta, in 1912 and 1921. A complete edition of the work, by the same scholar, was published in the Punjab Oriental Series, Lahore, in 1933. While the credit of presenting this important work to the scholarly world, for the first time, undoubtedly belongs to the aforesaid editor it must be observed that his edition hardly conforms to the standards of modern scholarship. In this edition, presumbly based on a single MS., there are neither variae lectiones nor any Critical Apparatus. Besides, the Lahore edition bristles with wrong and corrupt readings and is full of lacunae. In the present edition, we have utilised all the MSS available. In constituting the text, we have relied not only upon the manuscript material buc also on such secondary testimonia as other Sanskrit anthologies which quote some verses in common with the Sadukti- karnamrta, and source-books as well as miscellaneous works in which some of the verses can be traced.

Dandin is, perhaps, the earliest rhetorician to mention Kosa as a species of Kavya (Kavyadarsa, I. 13), but he does not define it. In his Sahitya-darpana (VI. 308). Visvanatha characterises Kosa-kavya (anthology) as a collection of detached verses arranged under different sections. The extant Sanskrit anthologies answer this description.

India produced a wealth of Sanskrit Kavyas of diverse types and diversified contents. Indian literary critics gave the generic name of Kavya to all kinds of literary com- positions-prose, poetry, mixed prose and poetry and drama. The non-dramatic Kavya literature, the Sravya Kavya as it is called, is divided and sub-divided into many classes. One of these classes is styled as Kosa kavya.

The question that naturally arises is what was the necessity for the compilation of the anthologies when there were already the masterpieces of Kalidasa, Bharavi and other Mahakavis? While the precise reasons that prompted the compilation of anthologies cannot be determined, a few conjectures seem to be plausible. In the first place, the Mahakavyas acquired a stereotyped form, and were com- posed according to a set pattern. Based on some well- known theme, their dominant sentiment was either the heroic or the erotic. Thus, these were enjoyed by literary connoisseurs and the scholarly people. But, the common people probably felt the need of some such work as would provide them with a means of relaxation suiting their varying moods and literary taste. It was, probably, to satisfy such readers that the anthologies were compiled.