Sukrtidatta Pantas Kartaviryodaya: Ein neuzeitliches Sanskrit-Mahakavaya aus Nepal.

• Author: ROCHER, LUDO
• Position: Review

Sukrtidatta Pantas Kartaviryodaya: Ein neuzeitliches Sanskrit-Mahakavaya aus Nepal. By JOHANNES SCHNEIDER. Indica et Tibetica, vol. 27. Swisstal Odendorf: INDICA ET TIBETICA VERLAG, 1996. Pp. 430. DM 84.

This volume, a revised version of a 1994 doctoral dissertation at the Philipps-Universitat in Marburg, deals with one of the works of Sukrtidatta Panta, who was born in the year 1823-24 in a village near the city of Baglung (Bagaluna) in western Nepal. Sukrtidatta's ancestors, including his father Bhavadatta, as well as his three elder brothers, were Sanskrit scholars and teachers. Schneider's provisional list of Sukrtidatta's works (pp. 27-29) includes twenty-eight items. Only one of these, the Bhavamrtavyakhya, a commentary on the tenth sarga of Jayadeva's Gitagovinda (dated 1843-44), has been published so far, by Prapannacarya (Pokhara and Lalitapura, v.s. 2049 [1992- 93]). Schneider is concerned with Sukrtidatta's "Spatwerk" -- it is labeled anuja to six other works in the final stanzas of six of its sargas--Kartaviryodaya (henceforth KVU) which, according to verse 17.35, was completed nagendra-netra-nava-bhumita-vikramabde vaisakha-masa-sita-paksa-trtiya-tithyam, i.e., on April 23, 1871 (p. 193), just a few years before the author's death.

The KVU is a mahakavya in 17 sargas and 1745 stanzas. Based on personal information which Sukrtidatta provides in the final chapter, Schneider describes the author's goal as follows: "In einer Zeit, als das Sanskrit schon langst zur Sprache einer kleinen Bildungsschicht geworden war, unternahm es Sukrtidatta Panta, das Genre des Mahakavya fortzufuhren. Seine Gedanken sind daher nicht nur wertvoll als Aussagen eines Dichters uber sein eigenes Werk--sie sind auch als Aufforderung an die Gebildeten zu verstehen, die grosse Tradition der Sanskrit-Dichtung nicht nur zu bewahren, sondern im Stil der alten Meister schopferisch fortzustzen" (p. 29).

Sukrtidatta refers to several predecessors whose everlasting Kirti he wishes to share:

srikalidasa-bhavabhuti-murari-maghasriharasa-bharavi-mukhah kavayo dhunapi tisthanti kirtivapuseti mamaisa yatnas tisthami kalpam amuna vapuseha vijnah. (KVU 17.32)

Yet, elsewhere he singles out one of them in particular, Sriharsa:

sriharsoktih sahrdayahradam harsavarsam tanotu (KVU 17.20b)

A substantial chapter of the volume (pp. 89-183) is devoted to the "poetische Figuren im achten Sarga." Both the seventh and the eighth sargas are, indeed, intentionally designed to...