1

4. First century A.D. Brahmi with equalised vertical lines.

The name given to each variety after the century is only provisional. The alphabet used in the Bhattiprolu relic casket inscription named by Bühler Drāviḍi and the alphabet of the ancient cave inscriptions of Southern India are excluded from this classification. The name Draviḍi should now be assigned to the Brahmi script used in the South Indian Cave inscriptions and the Bhattiprolu alphabet should be renamed Andhra.

II.-Ajamilamoksaprabandha of

Narayanabhatta.

By V. Venkataram Sharma Shastri Vidyabhusana. The Champu-praband ha Ajāmilamōkṣa is a short literary work belonging to Travancore. In publishing here the above work, I am relying on a Malayalam manuscript written on cadjan leaves, which I got from Mr. Thazhaman Sankarar Tantri of Chhenganur in the Travancore State. A piece of poetry interspersed with prose is called a Champu-prabandha or a Prabandha1 in the Kerala country. There is evidence of so many of such Prabandhas having been extant in Travancore. Written on the basis of Puranic stories, these Praband has tend to propagate religious faith among the people. A Hindu sub-caste named Chakyārs used to present, with commendable histrionic skill, the most interesting episodes of the famous epics and Purāņas of tho Hindus through these Prabandhas. Even at the present time when national arts have become almost extinct in India, the Chakyārs, who have made it their hereditary profession preach these Prabandhas in the Hindu temples during the annual festivals, when people congregate there in thousands. But, as the encouragement which they had been receiving in the past has been steadily on the wane, they have become mere figureheads, ignorant of Sanskrit and innocent of any expository skill.

Besides being preachers of Prabandhas, Chakyārs were hereditary actors of the Sanskrit dramas, which they used to exhibit in accordance with the rules of dramatic art expounded by Bharata.

1 Dravidians used to give the name "Prabandha " to purely poetical works also, e. g. the Dravidian Veda of the Śrī Väiṣṇavās named “Nālāyira Prabandham.''

2 By name" Küttachchakkayan" in Tamil. The existence of these Chakyārs in the first century A.D. is evidenced by mention in the third part (Vañjikkāṇḍam) of the famous Tamil work "Chilappadikāram " of these Küttachchakkayas having acted the "koṭṭichchēdam" episode in the Purapic story of Tripuradahana.”

در

Their acting has been popularly named "kūḍiyaṭṭam. The dramas or parts of dramas which were ordinarily acted by them were the Nagananda, Mantrāņka in the Pratijñāyāugandharāyaṇa, Śēphalikāņka and Svapnāņka in the Svapnavasavadattā Dhananjaya, Samvaraṇa, Kalyāṇasaugandhika, Bhagavadajjuka, and Parṇaśālāņka, Śūrpaṇakhāņka, and Asōkavanikāņkā in the Cüḍamaņinātaka. Neither Prabandha-preaching nor kūḍiyāṭṭam was performed by the Chakyārs anywhere else than in the Temple Mandapa. The important part of their acting consisted of the hand signs and the movements of the body which might appear crude and nonsensical to the eyes of the civilised artist accustomed to the fashionable movements of the modern stage. It is noteworthy to state here, however, that I had to fill up a certain destroyed portion of this manuscript from the memory of a Chäkyär.

The statements made about the life of Nārāyaṇa Bhatta the auther of the present manuscript, by K. Vāsudēvan Mūttatu in the sixth volume of the Keralagrandhamala and by V. Nagamiah in the Travancore State manual and also by T. Ganapati Sastri in the preface to the 18th volume of the Trivandrum Sanskrit series, all agree as to the time during which Nārāyaṇa Bhaṭṭa flourished, although hold different views in many other respects.

Mātṛdattasūnu Nārāyaṇa Bhaṭṭa, the author of the Prabandba in question hailed from South Malabar, at present a British Indian district in South India. He was a Nambūdiri Brahmin. He was well versed in the different branches of Sanskrit literature, such as grammar, astrology, medicine, Vedas, etc. He was a versatile author. Many books are ascribed to him in the various departments of knowledge. The Prakriyāsarvasvam, a treatise on Sanskrit grammar praised even by Bhattoji Dikṣita of the Siddhantakaumudi fame; the Manameyodayam, a work on Mimamsā, the Silpiratnam, an architectural book, the

3 Edition of Mangalodayam Company, Trichur, Cochin.

Part II Chapter-Language and Literature.

Narayaniyam by Narayana Bhaṭṭa.

Dhatukavyam, another important work on grammar, the Nārāyaṇīyam, the most important of his works and one full of devotion to Śrī-Kriṣṇa, and last but not the least famous praband has such as the Rajasuyam, Svahasudhakaram, Subhadrāharaṇam, Nṛgamōkṣam, etc. are some of Nārāyaṇa Bhaṭṭa's important works.

"

The date of the author is determined by scholars by the word Ayurarogyasaukhyam "occurring at the end of Na:āyaṇa Bhatta's devotional work and masterpiece "Nārāyaṇīyam." It was regarded that his word expresses the date on which the book was finished. That Kalidina falls on Sunday the 23rd Vréchikam of 763 Malabar era.6

Nārāyaṇa Bhaṭṭa was an anthor in Malayalam also. The Kūṭṭappaṭhakam, Kodiyaviraham and Candrikotsavam are

considered to be his works.

The present work Ajāmiļamōkṣa contains twenty poems and four prose-pieces or Chūrṇikās. It is to be inferred from the shortness of the work that it has been intended for one day's preaching by the Chakyār.

It is traditionally known that the Kalidina on which the composition of Nārāyaṇa was completed is indicated by the last word “Ayurārogya- ‘saukhyam in the book. This is about 1590 A.D. and the date of the author is conclusively in the latter half of the 16th century A.D.-Preface to Nārāyaṇīya.

III.-Chaksusiyam-an Arthasastra.

By A. S. Ramanatha Ayyar, B.A., M.R.A.S.,
Trivandrum.

There are a number of treatises on the science of Polity, which have been quoted from in many Sanskrit works and commentaries, but which have been lost to us or, at any rate, have not yet been discovered in their entirety in manuscript form. To name but a few instances, the Rājanīti-Ratnākara of Chandesvara, edited by Mr. K. P. Jayaswal, cites verses from a work called the Naradiya, which appears to be different from the existing law-book of the same author. Two other works quoted from in this composition are the Rājanīti and the Šukranīti, of which the latter appears to be different from the popular work of the same name available now in print.

One of such interesting works on Polity, which have not been brought to light till now, but which may lie hidden away under the crumbling moth-drilled cadjan heaps of some unexplored library, is the Chākṣuṣiyam-Arthasāstram, known only from the nineteen stanzas which have been quoted therefrom in an anthology called the Suktiratnahāra, a manuscript of which is available in the Palace Library of His Highness the Maharaja of Travancore. This anthology 2 is approximately assignable to the twelfth or thirteenth century A.D., and the Chikuṣiyam must evidently have been earlier. The fact that Chaksuga has been quoted by Mallinatha (fourteenth century A.D.). in his commentary on the Raghuvamsam, canto V. 50, namely, पत्र चाक्षुषः। लच्च मोकामो युद्धादन्यत्र करिवधं नकुर्यात् । इयं श्रीर्ये करिण इति ।

11

1 Vide Introduction to Rajanīti-Ratnākara, p. v.

' Vide my paper on Karupākara and Sūktiratnahāra (Third Oriental Conference Summary of Papers, p. 15-9).

5 Res. J.