The Tilakamanjarı, composed by Dhanapala sometime during the period between 1015 A. D. and 1055 A. D. in Dhara the impirial capital of the Malava Empire of Paramara Bhojadeva, is a classical Sanskrit prose-romance (gadya-kavya) interspersed with occasional verses. Set though it is in a Jaina socio-religious background, it reflects the contem-porary social and political situation as well as the literary and cultural trends during the heydays of the Paramara Empire of Malwa. A critical study of the work and its detailed literary evaluation in the setting of a comp.chensive contemporary perspective of the life and thought of the times was taken up by me for my doctoral desertation in 1966. Till then, it had hardly attracted the serious attention of Sanskrit scholars for a fully detailed independent study. In the course of my studies. I used to meet veteran scholars like Muni Shri Jinavijayaji, Muni Shri Punyavijayaji, Professor Rasiklal C. Parikh, Professor Dalsukhbhai Malavania, Dr. Harivallabh Bhayani, Dr. Hariprasad G. Shastri, and others to discuss various aspects of my studies. It was during one of our meetings with Professor Parikh that the idea of compiling the Critical Text of the Tilakamanjarı crystallised when the revered scholar enquired of me as to the basic text on which I was going to rely upon for my critical study.
But for this timely suggestion, I would have fallen into the usual groove of relying on a copy of the then available Printed text, edited by Pandit Bhavadatta Shastri of Ajmer and Kashinath Pandurang Parab and published by the Nirnaya Sagar Press, Bomby, in 1938 (Second Edition). and the Botad Edition of the TM with two commentaries, as has been done later on by some other Sanskrit scholars, who too have obtained their doctorate degrees from the Aligarh, the Kuruksnetra and the Vikrama Universities, on the basis of their literary and cultural study of the Tilakamanjarı. Alth-ough my research guide, Dr. Arunoday N. Jani, had given to me a printed copy of the first Edition published by the Nirnaya Sagar Press, Bombay (1903), which was duly corrected by Agama-prabhakara Muni Shri Punyavijayaji in consultation with Muni Shri Jinavijayaji and others in the early years of the current century, it could not be taken as the authentic critical text, according to Professor Parikh, for serious studies aimed at a doctorate degree. And Professor Parikh informed me further that he had almost undertaken the task of the Critical Edition of the Tilakamanjarı, himself, when his other commitments and old age left little time and energy for him to realise the dream; and he expressed a wish (in 1966) that young men like me (I was then in my thirty third year) should take up the work so that the critical study I had undertaken then would, and should, be based on the solid foundation of the authentic text of the work.
The Sanskrit text of the Tilakamanjari of Kavi Dhanapala of Dhara was first published in full in 1933 A.D. by the Nirnay Sagara Press, Bombay. It was edited by Pandits Bhavadatta Shastri and K. B. Parab in the Kavyamala Series (No. 85), and was issued in a single volume of three hundred fifty pages. The second edition, TM(N), published by them in 1933 A.D., was more or less a reprint preserving intact almost all the hundreds of mistakes and misprints of the first edition. The publication of a fairly correct edition with three commentaries, viz., Santyacarya's Tippanaka, Padmas-agara's Vyakhya and Vijayalavanyasuri's Vivrti, was started under the patronage of Sheth Shri Ishwardas Mulachandra from Ahmedabad in the year 1941 A.D. in Shri Vijayanemisüri Granthamala (No. 27), but somehow it did not proceed beyond the introductory verses and a part of the first sentence, i.e., covering pages 1 to 9 of the for TM (N). The work, with the two of the above commentaries, was again taken up for publication in V.Sam 2008 (i.e. 1952 A.D.) under the auspices of Shri Vijayalavanya-sari Jnana Mandira, Botad (Saurashtra); this time the Vyakhya of Padmasagara was dropped. Unfortunately, the learned author of the Paraga-viveti, Shri Vijayalavanyasari, left for the yonder world before the work was published in full. The incomplete edition published so far covered in three volumes almost two-thirds of the complete text of the work, i.e., covering the text portion upto two hundred twenty-six out of total number of four hundred twenty-eight pages of the TM(N).
The readings of the incomplete text published in the Botad Edition, TM(P), are mainly based on a copy of the first edition of the Nirnaya Sagara Press, as corrected by Muni Shri Punyavijayaji.3 But the editors of the Botad Edition have, in a few places taken liberty with the original text, which they have sought to correct, No less than twelve notices of manuscripts are found in various Lists of Mss., and in the Jinaratnakośa edited by Professor H, D. Velankar. The oldest, and hence the most important, palm-leaf ms. dated V. Sam. 1130 (i.e., 1074 A.D.)-written within about fifty years after the actual composition of the work by the poet, has been preserved by Muni Shri Punyavijayaji in fragments, and that too in such a ruined condition, that not much help can be expected of it for compiling a critical text of the TM.
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