Tilakamanjari

SR No.: 022659
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Dhanpal, Sudarshankumar Sharma
Publisher: Parimal Publications
Publication Year: 2002
Total Pages: 504
Language: English, Sanskrit
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 15 MB

Page 166

PART III
CULTURAL DATA IN TILAKAMAÑJARĪ
1. GEOGRAPHICAL DATA
MAIN SUB-DIVISIONS OF BHĀRATAVARSA
As already observed on the testimony of the Prabandha Cintāmani of Merutungācārya and other literary, inscriptional and extraneous sources, Dhanapāla lived and flourished in the times of Muñja, Sindhurāja and Bhoja and approximately in the last two decades of the tenth and first half of the eleventh century A.D. and composed as well as completed his Tilakamañjarī in the reign period of Bhoja who himself was great patron of learning, a prolific writer, an author of as many as thirty four literary pieces on all subjects, literary, rhetorical and technical, we shall have to examine the relevant geographical details available throughout his descriptions in the light of the history of the Gurjara Pratihāras and Paramāras, the latter being the very title of the lineage of Bhoja and his predecessors.
Like Kālidāsa (Raghu Vaṁsa)' and Dandin (Avantisundarī Kathā)? Dhanapāla has also referred to the tradition of eighteen dvīpas' which may have been the southern and south-eastern islands like Andaman (Indradyumna), Lankā (Simhala), Malaya, Jāvā (Yava) and Sumātrā (Suvarna) etc. described in the Geography of the Gupta age.
The reference of Dhanapāla is in context with Harivāhana who is likely to be born to Madirāvatī as the son of Meghavāhana, king of Ayodhyā in the Uttarakośalas, a son endowed with prowess (411401 9:), an enjoyer of the kingdoms of the overlords of both the terrestrials as well as the celestials; likely to take birth very shortly by the blessings of Sri (lit. by the power of Śrī), with the victory column made of wood, stones and gems dug up at the peaks of the mountains on the shores of the four oceans having service rendered unto his feet by the spouses of the harem, being rendered
1. VI. 38. 2. ASK pp 62; 161. also Bāna in his HC. pp. 179, 185; of the Vikram Quarterly Research
Journal of Vikram University, Ujjain p. 109. 3. TM Vol. I, p. 153, Vol. II p. 149. 4. KSN p. 110. See Also HSA p. 119 Ragh. V.VI 62 XII 63, 66.