Essay name: Tilakamanjari of Dhanapala (study)
Author:
Shri N. M. Kansara
Affiliation: Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda / Department of Sanskrit Pali and Prakrit
This is an English study of the Tilakamanjari of Dhanapala, a Sanskrit poem written in the 11th century. Technically, the Tilaka-manjari is classified as a Gadyakavya (鈥減rose-romance鈥�). The author, Dhanapala was a court poet to the Paramara king Munja, who ruled the Kingdom of Malwa in ancient west-central India.
Chapter 1 - The Author (biography of Dhanapala)
29 (of 59)
External source: Shodhganga (Repository of Indian theses)
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28
a few fragments of inscriptional poetry and reported
about an inscription en a k茅pi temple submerged under the
waters of the ocean. The traveller had brought a resin
dye of it which contained a couple of incomplete verses.
Dhanap膩la completed them and asserted that it must needs
tally with the original ones on the temple walls?1 Meru-
tunga adds that while the other court-poets tried their
hands unsuccessfully at completing the verse, Dhanap膩la
could do it in a moment?2
(12) Another one dwells upon Dhanapala's typically
Jainistic attitude to public works of munificence, such
as, building tanks and etc. Once the king asked him how
much merit was earned by constructing such huge tanks.
The poet unexpectedly replied in a satirical tone pointing
out to the possibility of equally huge dem猫rit due to the
death of the acquatic creatures in the event of the tanks
94 getting dried up due to the lack of sufficient rains.
(13) The next incident seems to have occured in a very
advanced age in the life of Dhanap膩la, who was called
back from his voluntary exile from Malwa. When the king
asked him about the condition of his long uninhabited
house, the poet brought out, in a p褟袠 paronomasiaic
91.PRC.17.177ff.; PC(SJGM).p.41.
92.PC(SJGM).p.40...
93.PRC.17.177FF.;PU(SJGM).p.40.
94.PRC.17.185-190; also PC(SJGM).p.39.
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