In contrast to the legacy of the text discussed in the previous chapter, the adaptation I analyze here, the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä by ManohardÄs, has remained almost invisible in the discussions of the last century. This invisibility, however, did not apply to the text in its earlier years, since manuscript evidence demonstrates that this DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä was extensively copied. The fate of this text is representative of that of many other texts in the same language, Old Hindi, the denominator for a variety of closely resembling vernacular forms of early modern North India.1 These texts, and especially adaptations of earlier Sanskrit texts, were considered to be merely vernacular decoctions of their high-culture predecessors, and therefore not necessarily thought of as worthy of study.2 However, my analysis proves that there is much more depth to these Old Hindi âtranslationsâ than such a judgment would allow. The DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä by ManohardÄs exhibits its own distinct character, drawing from a culture that is clearly different from that of its example, the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä by Amitagati. At the same time, it follows quite closely the text it explicitly seeks to mirror. It is this balancing exercise of ManohardÄsâs adaptation between translation and transcreation that has led me to call this text a vernacularization, connoting a meaning that does not exclusively pertain to language. To formulate my argument, this chapter will set ManohardÄsâs primary text against its historical and vernacular literary background, and relate this to the textâs own definition of its relationship to Amitagatiâs DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä.3
1 ManohardÄs in Early Modern North India
Most of the information we have about ManohardÄs comes from his own DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä composition.4 In the introduction to his work (maá¹ galÄcaraá¹a) as well as in the âepilogueâ (praÅasti) ManohardÄs includes a relatively detailed autobiographical description. ManohardÄs was part of the SonÄ« gotra (âexogamous clanâ) within the Khaá¹á¸elvÄl caste and belonged to the MÅ«lasaá¹gha community of the Digambara Jains.5 He seems to have come originally from Sanganer near Jaipur and would then have moved to DhÄmpur, where he wrote the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä in 1705 VS (1648 or 1649 CE).6 Broadcasting his poetic skills, ManohardÄs describes DhÄmpur vividly in his praÅasti as a splendorous city in the valley of DÄdura, decorated with gardens in which cuckoos sing five ragas, and by stepwells full of lotuses. The city was, according to the author, also home to many wealthy merchants (who enjoyed pÄn and flowers, and) who patronized Jain culture. One of those merchants was ÄsÅ« Jeá¹h ÅÄh, whose son, named Vidhicaá¹da, seems to have supported ManohardÄs financially. Another merchant from Benares, MatisÄgar, then comes into the picture. His presence would have led to some rivalry among the merchants in AyodhyÄ and made life difficult for ManohardÄs. It was probably ÄsÅ« Jeá¹h ÅÄh who patronized ManohardÄsâs writing of the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä. The person who instructed ManohardÄs both about the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä and about Jain views on morality in general was called HÄ«rÄmaá¹i. Further, ManohardÄs took inspiration from SÄlivÄhana of Agra,7 as well as from Jagadatta MiÅra GauḠof Hisar. A third important exemplary figure for ManohardÄs was VegrÄj Paá¹á¸it, who is mentioned both in the maá¹ galÄcaraá¹a and in the praÅasti as a Jain intellectual. Because ManohardÄs found the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä (in Sanskrit) helpful in countering the opponents of Jainism, and in illustrating the meaning of friendship, he decided to render a bhÄá¹£Ä (âvernacularizationâ) version of it.8
Besides the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä, ManohardÄs is also thought to have written the JñÄna CintÄmaá¹i in Burhanpur. This work is said to be a verse text on adhyÄtma, or âspirituality,â as well as a collection of subhÄá¹£itas (Jain 1964, 222).9 Other works ascribed to ManohardÄs include the Guá¹aá¹hÄá¹Ä GÄ«ta, a short text of seventeen verses, the CintÄmaá¹imÄá¹a BÄvanÄ«, a text of fifty-three verses on mysticism (rahasyaâvÄda) that seems to express ideas close to those of the Nirguá¹ Sants, and the eleven-verse long Suguru SÄ«á¹£a, as well as two vrat kathÄs and a work called JñÄnapad (Jain 1964, 222â224).10 It is, however, uncertain whether these texts were written by the same ManohardÄs as wrote the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä.11
ManohardÄsâs autobiographical verses suggest that he had a multilayered identity and a role in society that was defined by different sorts of interactions. He was a writer of Old Hindi literature and a professional translator, who travelled between different cities for this purpose. At the same time, he identified as a Jain who was thoroughly engaged with the Jain intellectual community and who thought deeply about his religion. The different layers of his personality are related to the historical context in which he acted. Mughal India knew a flourishing literary culture in the vernacular language written by authors of different religious strands. The Jain community participated in and extensively encouraged this literaryâintellectual culture.
1.1 Jain Literary Circles of the Seventeenth Century
Our author reports on different cities in North India (DhÄmpur, Benares, AyodhyÄ, and Agra) that are connected by a network of wealthy Jain merchants interested in Jain literature. This account of his life is reminiscent of the autobiography of BanÄrsÄ«dÄs (1587âc. 1643), who is probably the best-known Jain author who wrote in Old Hindi and lived in roughly the same time period. His autobiography, the ArdhakathÄnak (âHalf Storyâ), is famous for the details it contains about northern India in the seventeenth century and about the life of a literary-interested Jain merchant, as BanÄrsÄ« was himself. In his Half Story we are told about the extensive travels he undertook as a merchant between Agra, Patna, Allahabad, and Jaunpur, and about the struggles that came with these trade enterprises. ManohardÄsâs autobiographical account shows some similarities to this one. He was equally involved with a community of merchants who travelled between cities in the same region and with their commercial concerns.12 Further, the fact that both ManohardÄs and BanÄrsÄ«dÄs made bhÄá¹£Äs of Sanskrit works shows that they both received education in different languages and literatures.13
In the praÅasti by ManohardÄs we read about Agra, a city that played an important role in the life of BanÄrsÄ«dÄs as well. It is suggested in the works of both authors to have been a city of opportunities, on account of its political and economic power, where literary knowledge was also disseminated.14 Many Jains traveled and migrated to the city and created a dynamic Jain intellectual culture. There were several Digambara temples controlled by ritual specialists, or paá¹á¸itas, who oversaw and organized temple activities and rituals, engaged in the production of Jain texts, and delivered public sermons (Cort 2015, 69â70). BanÄrsÄ«dÄs renders a clear image of how these public lectures were performed, and of the discussion groups (ÅailÄ«) that took place around the temples, in his SamayasÄra NÄá¹aka: âthey were five men, who met and sat together. They would discuss the supreme truth, and nothing else. Sometimes they discussed the SamayasÄra, sometimes other texts. Sometimes they would continue to discuss wisdom even after they had stood up [to leave].â15 The quote suggests why BanÄrsÄ«dÄs invested his time and literary skills in writing a bhÄá¹£Ä of Sanskrit texts, namely, to foster intellectual discussions by providing a vernacular aid to reading Jain âwisdom.â Furthermore, the quote is valuable because it testifies to the way in which Jain laymen in the seventeenth century took a leading role in developing their own religion, how they placed an emphasis on knowledge, and how texts became a central medium through which to study this.
These are the characteristics of the new religious movement, called adhyÄtma, to which the quote refers, that arose in Agra in the first half of the seventeenth century and of which BanÄrsÄ« was a co-founder. Cort has shown how similar movements arose in other North Indian cities around the same period, which eventually led to the split between the BÄ«sapanthÄ« and TerahpanthÄ« branches of Digambara Jainism (Cort 2002b).16 These movements developed out of changes within the Digambara religious circles that had been earlier instigated,17 and were characterized by a growing opposition to the authority of the bhaá¹á¹Ärakas, a rejection of many of the rituals, and an emphasis on inner spirituality over outward ritual observance.18 The reference to Agra in the text by ManohardÄs is brief, but it gives the sense of a Jain layman (named SÄlivÄhana) who read the text of the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä for the purpose of gaining knowledge.
Another link to these new styles of religiosity as advocated by the adhyÄtma movement, is the fact that ManohardÄs originally came from Sanganer. Cort describes how, next to Agra, the region of Jaipur (and Sanganer in particular) was another centre where Digambara religiosity developed into a new style that focused on knowledge and self-realization.19 Merchants from Sanganer would have travelled to Agra for business and thereby come into contact with adhyÄtma paá¹á¸itas who preached ÄdhyÄtmika texts. In that way, the new movement, which had started in 1626 according to BakhatrÄm Åah, would have spread to Sanganer (Cort 2002b, 50).20 The new spiritual religious movement progressed more strongly with the figures JodhrÄj GodÄ«kÄ and HemrÄj GodÄ«kÄ, two intellectuals who wrote in the 1660s (See Cort 2002b, 52â53). It is just before this that ManohardÄs wrote his DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä (1648/1649 CE). This means that the most important adhyÄtma-inspired events may have occurred after ManohardÄs had left for DhÄmpur.
It is certain that much was happening in the religious environment in which ManohardÄs lived and worked, but are we able to read traces of these developments in his own writings? As I mentioned above, his JñÄna CintÄmaá¹i seems to suggest as much, since it is described as a work on spirituality (adhyÄtma). Works such as the CintÄmaá¹imÄá¹a BÄvanÄ« and the JñÄnapad, if they are indeed authored by him, would suggest a similar intellectual interest in Jainism. Further, the fact that he would have written a Guá¹aá¹hÄá¹Ä GÄ«ta, a song on the guá¹asthÄnas, seems to follow the interest the contemporary Jain intellectual circles had in the fourteen guá¹asthÄnas, or levels of spiritual purity, as explained in Nemicandraâs tenth-century Gommaá¹asÄra. Here again, BanÄrsÄ«dÄs serves as the example: after his exposure to the Gommaá¹asÄra, he incorporates the fourteen levels of spiritual purity into Kundakundaâs ideas by adding a chapter devoted to the guá¹asthÄnas to his SamayasÄra NÄá¹aka, an Old Hindi translation of Kundakundaâs SamayasÄra (Petit 2013, 130â131).21 Can we find reflections of these internal religious developments in ManohardÄsâs bhÄá¹£Ä DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä as well? Some parts of his writing indeed suggest such an influence. First of all, in the maá¹ galÄcaraá¹a and praÅasti, ManohardÄs mentions the names of lay Jains only; except for that to Amitagati, who was his poetic predecessor, there is no reference to any member of the ascetic community. Religious intellectual authority instead seems to be invested in the words of a paá¹á¸it (an intellectual lay Jain) called VegrÄj. The following quote suggests that ManohardÄs received instruction on Jain religion from this layman, who specialized in Jain ritual knowledge, as his title suggests:
[I bow to] the Arhat in his true form. The man who knows and bears this in mind, that man [reaches] unparalleled liberation, says Veg Paá¹á¸it excellently.22
The intellectual recognition of a paá¹á¸ita, early on in the second verse of the text, accords with the fact that the adhyÄtma movement and wider religious intellectual developments were led by such Jain lay specialists. The same quote hints at another link to the new religious developments, with its focus on knowledge (âthe man who knows thisâ) in pursuit of enlightenment (âthat man [reaches] unparalleled liberationâ). In fact, this sentence is reminiscent of a verse by BanÄrsÄ«dÄs in his BanÄrsivilÄs:
The words of the gods, tÄ«rthaá¹karas, gurus, ascetics, Ägamas, and the enlightened beings, are the endless and just dharmaâthe one who knows this, he is a Jain (1905, 190â191; trans. by Plau 2018, 60).23
The last pÄda of this verse can be seen as a sort of shorter version of ManohardÄsâs half verse. Also similar are the words or phrases that occur in its proximity. Just as BanÄrsÄ«dÄs praises the gods, the tÄ«rthaá¹ karas, the gurus, and so on, similarly ManohardÄsâs preceding verse is a salutation to the arhats, the gods, and the gurus.24 We might hypothesize that ManohardÄs took inspiration from BanÄrsÄ«dÄsâs text when he wrote the sentence, but it is also possible that this phrasing was a literary idiom among Jain authors at the time, since part of what constitutes good poetic practice is to follow the literary conventions of oneâs community. In any case, the similarity confirms the embeddedness of ManohardÄsâs text within the Jain literary culture of the time. A final interesting aspect within the quoted verse is the use of the word âsvarÅ«pa.â This word can have two different meanings. Firstly, svarÅ«pa can refer to the embodied form of the arhat (cf. arihaá¹ta deva svarÅ«pa), which would in this case imply that the author is bowing to the embodied image of the arhat.25 Within the normative tradition of Digambara Jainism, worship of the embodied aspect of the Jina image is negatively evaluated, because Jains should not be attached to any god (the Jina) and should instead contemplate their state of enlightenment.26 Another concept to which the word âsvarÅ«paâ can refer is that of the âtrue formâ or âpure formâ of the arhat. This true form is the jÄ«va in its perfected unconditioned state that is present in any living being, thus also in the arhat, and can be attained by any living being. This is the meaning I believe to be more correct in the context of a Digambara text that further on explicitly refutes the worship of gods (as I elaborate upon on p. 100). For that reason, I have chosen this meaning in my translation. In this understanding, ManohardÄs bows to the arhat in his âtrue form,â realizing that this is no other than the form we can all attain in this life. The focus on self-realization and inner spirituality is again something emphasized by adhyÄtmavÄda, in the tradition of Kundakunda.27 Further, the reference to the svarÅ«pa (as the âtrue formâ) of the arhat is not uncommon among other traditions of the time. This form of veneration (ManohardÄs âbowsâ to the arhat) lies close to the practice of the Nirguá¹ Sants, who worship a god without qualities. As such, the choice of the svarÅ«pa may also indicate influences from this bhakti tradition.
To return to the influence of the adhyÄtma movement, throughout his text ManohardÄs repeats the following words, which suggest his involvement in this âspiritualâ tradition: mana rahasi manoharadÄs kahai (âManohardÄs, whose mind is on spiritual matters, saysâ). The term rahasya (âsecret,â âmysticalâ) is, like adhyÄtma, a cover term for the Digambara âmysticalâ or âspiritualâ tradition.28 ManohardÄsâs repeated self-reference as one who is engaged in this âspiritualityâ suggests that at the time of writing his DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä he was indeed involved in some way in the newly upcoming movement. On the other hand, an element we do not find in ManohardÄsâs DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä that was very prominent in ÄdhyÄtmika texts is the emphasis on niÅcayaâvyavahÄra.29 This is a theory developed by Kundakunda that distinguishes two points of view, a conventional point of view (vyavahÄra), which describes different stages toward liberation, and an absolute point of view (niÅcaya), which considers solely the existence of the pure supreme self (Petit 2019, 172). The absence of this theory in ManohardÄsâs DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä suggests that within the intellectual circles of the time there were different topics and trends of thought circulating. Although we cannot state with certainty that our author engaged directly in the adhyÄtma circles, the above reflections have made clear that ManohardÄs did not remain unaffected by internal religious evolutions.
Besides considering the influence of socio-religious developments in ManohardÄsâs milieu, it is worth situating him within the innovations and consolidations in contemporary Jain vernacular writing. Jain literature in Old Hindi covered a wide array of genres ranging from devotional songs, such as those by Änandghan or DyÄnÄtrÄy,30 through narratives, as written by BÄlak,31 JinadÄsa,32 or ManohardÄs, to more philosophical treatises as we find in BanÄrsÄ«dÄsâs SamayasÄra NÄá¹aka. The mere fact that in MiÅraâs historical overview of Jain literature in Old Hindi (identified as Maru-Gurjar) the list of authors from the eighteenth century alone stretches over five full pages, renders clear that Jains participated actively in the writing of Old Hindi literature (1997, 11â16).33 Moreover, Bangha has argued that the dominant variant of Old Hindi, BrajbhÄá¹£Ä, as a literary language had its roots in what he calls Maru-Gurjar, the language of the vernacular literature that consisted overwhelmingly of Jain narrative compositions. After its inception in Gujarat in the twelfth century, this literature extended into MadhyadeÅa, flourishing mostly in Gujarat and western Rajasthan up to about the sixteenth century. Banghaâs main argument is that Maru-Gurjar provided the literary idiom, which he also identifies as a Jain literary idiom, that continued into BrajbhÄá¹£Ä literature through geographic expansion and regionalization (2018, 24).34 This demonstrates that the role of the Jains in the development of Old Hindi literary culture must not be overlooked. It also shows that ManohardÄs did not start anything new with his writing in Old Hindi. With his DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä he positioned himself within a well-established tradition of vernacular Jain narrative compositions. He also placed himself in the tradition of bhÄá¹£Ä writing, which was seen as important among Jains in spreading knowledge of their tradition. On the other hand, from the study by Jain on Jain narratives (prabandhakÄvya) translated into BrajbhÄá¹£Ä (Old Hindi) it appears that ManohardÄs was one of the earlier authors to compose a narrative in the North Indian vernacular (1976, 88â124).35
It is very difficult to assess the extent to which the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä by ManohardÄs was an immediate product of a Jain-oriented literary culture in contrast to that of a vernacular literary culture of North India in general. As Ollett (2017) has shown for Prakrit literature, social spheres (such as âcourtlyâ versus âreligiousâ) did not stand in isolation, and especially within the literary field, the nature of which is creativity, they mutually influenced one another. It may, therefore, be more effective to indeed think of ManohardÄsâs writing as complying with a hybridized âliterary-cultural ideal with more or less substantive, and more or less rigid, religious and ethical commitmentsâ (Ollett 2017, 7).36 One way of scrutinizing the religious particularity of his Old Hindi composition, could be to look at the language properties of the text and whether there are traces of Maru-Gurjar, the âmotherâ vernacular language for Jain literature.37 I do not attempt this here, because drawing such conclusions would necessitate in-depth editorial work on the basis of the manuscript material I am using, which is beyond the scope of this book.38
There is one textual element I wish to point out that presumptively indicates intertextuality with or embeddedness within North Indian Jain vernacular writing; this is the extensive use of the idiom mana vaca kÄya (âin mind, speech, and bodyâ) in ManohardÄsâs DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä. This triad has a long history in Indian religious traditions as a basic way to understand the human person, appearing in the Bhagavad GÄ«tÄ (17.14â16) and the Manusmá¹ti (12.3), and is widespread in the Buddhist tradition.39 In the Jain tradition this triad goes back to the description of the mahÄvratas (âgreat vowsâ) for mendicants in the TattvÄrthasÅ«tra. They prescribe that the mendicant should protect himself from karma through a controlled and informed stance toward the surrounding world, which includes following the three guptis (âprotectionsâ) and five samitis (âcareful actionsâ). Mind, speech, and body are the three modalities involved in the three guptis that should be under constant restraint so that they are not employed without spiritual purpose and thus do not lead to the accumulation of karma.40
However, these three modalities also play a role in the life of Jain laymen. Williams mentions how mind, speech, and body can, for example, be a means to break the vow of non-violence, need to be aligned in upholding equanimity (sÄmÄyikavrata), and must be purified before doing pÅ«jÄ.41 The extensive mention of mind, speech, and body by ManohardÄs relates to this more general sense of the required state of being of the Jain laymen. This is evident firstly from the fact that the text was meant primarily for a lay audience,42 secondly from the fact that the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä ends with an explanation of the ÅrÄvaka-vratas, and thirdly from the sort of sentences in which this idiom occurs in the text.43 These sentences seem to be used mostly in direct addressâeither to the audience as a pause in the narration, or to the dialogue partner in the frame storyâand refer to a certain state of being one should uphold.44 The entanglement of the idiom with the Jain literary context is evidenced as well by its occurrence in other early modern Jain writings in Old Hindi. We find the triad, for example, in devotional songs or other verse texts such as by DyÄnatrÄy (1676â1726) and by DaulatrÄm KÄslÄ«vÄl.45 Given the fact that DyÄnatrÄy and DaulatrÄm KÄslÄ«vÄl are both writers of ÄdhyÄtmika texts, we could read the idiom as emphasizing the spiritual care of the individual laymen. To this I would add the fact that the idiom occurs also in variant forms in the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä, which suggests its use as a filler.46 Outside of the Jain tradition, âmind, speech, and bodyâ occurs, for example, in the JñÄnasamudra (1.1) by SundardÄsa, a major poet of the DÄdÅ«panthÄ« Sant tradition. So it appears that the religious triad became a literary idiom in vernacular writing. With this in mind, the next section sets out the context of Old Hindi literary composition.
1.2 Old Hindi Literary Culture
Literary writing in Old Hindi encompassed a wide range of vernacular texts that circulated between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries.47 A variety of different societal levels (including politics, religion, linguistic evolution, etc.) that influenced one another came together in the texts and thus fell under the ambit of such literary writing. Relatively recent scholarship understands Old Hindi literary culture as a continuum of literatures in North Indian vernacular languages, characterized by certain literary idioms of vernacular writing.48 With time, BrajbhÄá¹£Ä became the dominant language variant in the region. The terms âOld Hindiâ or âBrajbhÄá¹£Äâ were not in circulation at the time of ManohardÄs, and do not seem to be attested before the late seventeenth century (Busch 2011a, 8); instead, literary agents of the time mostly used the term âHindaviâ/âHinduiâ/âHindiâ in Persian circles or âbhÄá¹£Ä,â as sources from the fifteenth century evidence (Orsini and Sheikh 2014, 15). The literary vernacular in North India was also referred to with regional terms such as âMadhyadeÅiya,â or more local ones such as âGvaliyÄriâ or âMaruâ and âGurjarâ (Busch 2011a, 8; Bangha 2018, 6). This shows that the nomenclatural situation at the emergence of vernacular writing in North India is quite different from the situation in fourteenth-century Karnataka, where Vá¹ttavilÄsa, who I discuss in Chapter Four, made a clear reference to his language as kannaá¸a, suggesting that it was already well-established as the language of regional literature.49 ManohardÄs himself refers to his writing as a âbhÄá¹£Äâ (or bhÄkhÄ; á¹£a and kha are interchangeable in that period), as such positing his language in the most general sense as a vernacular and relating it to a wider transregional range of North Indian literatures.
The complexity of early vernacular writing in North India is further emphasized by the need to reconceptualize vernacularization, as coined by Pollock, in this context. Two important differences from his understanding are, firstly, the fact that religion should not be excluded from this process, and, secondly, the role orality has played.50 A look at the roots of Old Hindi literature clarifies the literary continuum in which ManohardÄs operated and the literary idioms he was working with in the seventeenth century. The Vaiá¹£á¹ava bhakti poets, who are perhaps most dominantly associated with BrajbhÄá¹£Ä writing, illustrate the importance of orality. Their poetry, traditionally linked to the Braj region, stretched across geographical locations through a network of poet-saints and their texts, which were sung orally. Only relatively late on were poems by poets such as SÅ«rdÄs, HaridÄs, or HarirÄm VyÄs transcribed into manuscripts. This oral character of the Vaiá¹£á¹ava literature is encoded in texts through several aesthetical aspects, which have left their trace in other Old Hindi writings (Williams 2014, 110â111).51 In contrast, the CÄndÄyan by MaulÄna DÄud in AvadhÄ«, the earliest and most famous example of the Sufi PremÄkhyÄn genre, did circulate from its inception in manuscript form. This was probably influenced by the larger scale of paper production in Mughal circles. And while the written texts were ancillary to the oral performances, they were important in spreading Sufi ideology (Williams 2014, 76â85).52 This duality between the oral and the written explains the clearly orally influenced style of the PremÄkhyÄns.
A similar duality between oral and written is found in the Nirguá¹ Sant tradition, which is comprised of the different religious communities of the DÄdÅ« Panth, the NirañjanÄ«s, and the KabÄ«r Panth. These communities anthologized their devotional songs and defined them as fixed texts (or granths) in manuscripts. At the same time, the singing of these songs still made up the core of these communitiesâ religious experience.53 Regarding the Nirguá¹ Sant communities, and especially the NirañjanÄ«s, it is relevant to point out their similarities with Jain literary communities; just like Jains, Nirañjanis knew widespread networks because of their connection to merchant communities, they circulated in the regions where Jains were also very active (with their core activity in Rajasthan), and they were vigorous in producing manuscripts for their religious practice.54 Further research on the connections made between these two religious groups would be meaningful.
Besides this oralâwritten duality, the beginnings of Old Hindi formed the vernacular literary culture in the balancing of novelty with established literary conventions. For example, the CÄndÄyan shows influences from the cosmopolitan literary idioms of Sanskrit and Persian literature, while at the same time departing far enough from it to exhibit a definite and distinct literary language and to establish its own status as literature (Busch 2011b, 209).55 This vernacular engagement with the âoldâ is also noticeable in several compositions that aim at making earlier Sanskrit or Persian works accessible to a vernacular-language audience. We see this at Mughal courts as well as in bhakti spheres and among Jains, as the Old Hindi DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä illustrates.56 Many of these Old Hindi âtranslationsâ engage with the PurÄá¹as, and authors of the North Indian vernacular in general are fond of epicâpurÄá¹ic material. TulsÄ«dÄsâs RÄmcaritmÄnas is a famous example, but Jain writings such as the SÄ«tÄcarit by RÄmcand BÄlak and ManohardÄsâs DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä also draw from the PurÄá¹as.
One very early author to have written epicâpurÄá¹ic texts in a North Indian vernacular language, is Viá¹£á¹udÄs (mid-fifteenth century). His vernacular MahÄbhÄrata and RÄmÄyaá¹a were written for the courtly audiences in Gwalior. Interesting for the present book is that he was a contemporary of RaïdhÅ«, a Jain author who also wrote epicâpurÄá¹ic works in Gwalior, but in Apabhraá¹Åa language.57 The simultaneous occurrence of Apabhraá¹Åa, a classical/regional language, and an emerging vernacular language shows that vernacularization was not a straightforward process.58 Courtly patronage seems to have played an influencing role in the choice of one or other of the two languages, but it is not unlikely that for RaïdhÅ« the choice for Apabhraá¹Åa would have been more in line with his Jain background. The relationship between the two does not end here. Bangha (2014) has noticed archaic influences in the language of Viá¹£á¹udÄs similar to the âproto-BrajbhÄá¹£Äâ of two works by RaïdhÅ«, and the idiom of Viá¹£á¹udÄsâs epics is similar to the literary idiom of Apabhraá¹Åa writings. The closeness of Jain Apabhraá¹Åa literature to early BrajbhÄá¹£Ä texts has prompted Bangha to put forward the hypothesis that the âbeginnings of Hindi literatureâ (or at least part of it) must be searched for in Jain narrative literature from western North India. It would be valuable to study the continuity of Jain writing from Apabhraá¹Åa to Old Hindi, but in the present context we should see the literary idiom in which ManohardÄs worked as having developed through cross-influences from different communities.
The multilingualism of the literary culture at the time, the cooperation of courtly and devotional spheres in literary production through practices of authorship, patronage, copying and readership/listenership, the duality of orality and literization, the influence of bhakti, and the importance of narrativity have all left their mark on the literary idiom that was applied to most (if not all) texts at the height of Old Hindi literary culture, and thus also to the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä by ManohardÄs. Other related features we might add are a narration marked by condensation and rootedness in earlier compositions, the use of specific meters (caupaï, doha, etc.), and the retention of Sanskritic elements such as the maá¹ galÄcaraá¹a. To close my description I would like to re-emphasize, in contrast to Pollock, the evident importance of religious communities in the development and blooming of Old Hindi literature.
2 ManohardÄsâs DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä as bhÄá¹£Ä
ManohardÄs defines the relationship of his adaptation to the source text by Amitagati as follows:
Knowing [the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä by] muni Amitagati that has been read out a thousand times before,59 I have made with intellect and validity its bhÄá¹£Ä with folded hands. A thousand and seventy years after the reign of Vikrama, then this auspicious and excellent kathÄ in Sanskrit [was made].60
In honorific terms ManohardÄs testifies that he wrote his work after the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä by Amitagati. He even mentions the date of the Sanskrit text, which is quite exceptional. This historical consciousness of ManohardÄs seems to suggest that Amitagatiâs work meant a change of course in the literary history of the Jains. It also suggests that ManohardÄs used a manuscript of the text to create his adaptation. ManohardÄs calls his source text a kathÄ, whereas he qualifies his own work as a bhÄá¹£Ä.
The word âbhÄá¹£Ä,â though simply glossed as âspeech, language (especially vernacular),â61 contains different meanings, which go back to its use in Sanskrit. Derived from the verb âbhÄá¹£ (to speak), the term had already acquired its connotation of âvernacularâ in classical literary criticism. Abhinavagupta, for example, in his interpretation of Bharata, refers to âbhÄá¹£Äâ as a deviation (apabhraá¹Åa) from Sanskrit (Ollett 2017, 134).62 This meaning of âbhÄá¹£Äâ as non-classicalâthus vernacularâwas passed on into early modern times, where in the northern parts of India the word came to denote a vernacular language in general.63 In the vernacular literature of that time, it indeed became common for authors to refer to their own compositions with the term âbhÄá¹£Äââas ManohardÄs does. Brian Hatcher, while analyzing the word âanuvÄdaâ (modern Hindi for âtranslationâ), illustrates how Bengali authors used expressions such as saá¹graha bhÄá¹£Äte (âcompiled in the vernacularâ) or artha bhÄá¹£Äte ⦠prakÄÅa (ârevealing the meaning ⦠in the vernacularâ) to refer to their renderings of earlier (Sanskrit) works into vernacular language (2017, 14). The same scholar also mentions how another such expression, bhÄá¹£Ä vivaraá¹a (âexposition of the meaning in the vernacularâ), complicates the meaning of âbhÄá¹£Ä.â This expression can be taken to mean âtranslationâ but can be reasonably understood as âcommentaryâ (2017, 122). In this context, it is worth noting that âbhÄá¹£Äâ is etymologically related to âbhÄá¹£ya,â the term used to classify commentarial literature.
The way in which ManohardÄs uses the word, in the construction bhÄá¹£Ä kÄ«nÄ«, appears to have been common for Jain authors. As Cort points out, the seventeenth-century Jain authors BanÄrsÄ«dÄs, Kauná¹pÄl, HemrÄj, and their successors all use the noun âbhÄá¹£Äâ together with a form of the verb âkar to indicate that their works are âretellingsâ of earlier Sanskrit (or possibly Prakrit) works (2015, 96, 71, fn. 34). Cort translates this construction as âto make it vernacular.â I would argue that a translation that takes âbhÄá¹£Äâ as a noun is also meaningfulââto make a bhÄá¹£Äâ or âto do bhÄá¹£Ä.â64 Such a translation understands âbhÄá¹£Äâ as a product or as a process, and not just as âvernacular language.â In this sense, âbhÄá¹£Äâ can be paralleled to adaptation, while adding the focus on âinter-languageâ and vernacularity.65 I suggest that the word âvernacularizationâ is then a useful translation for âbhÄá¹£Ä.â
If Jain authors used âbhÄá¹£Äâ as referring to a process of vernacularizing, the subsequent question becomes: What does it mean to vernacularize in early modern North India?
Allison Busch describes how the Old Hindi rhetorician CintÄmaá¹i TripÄá¹hÄ« approaches the act of vernacularizing as an enterprise of creating a new literary system. TripÄá¹hÄ«, she states, âviewed himself not so much as a translator of his Sanskrit source texts, but as someone engaged in a new theorization (vicÄra) of vernacular literature (bhÄá¹£Ä kavita)â (2011a, 107). Such statements suggest that the process of âvernacularization,â the creation of a bhÄá¹£Ä, implied the establishment of a distinct Hindi literary genre. For Jain authors, making a bhÄá¹£Ä was also a means to make Sanskrit texts available to a wider audience and thus entailed an engagement with Sanskrit literary culture. Authors such as BanÄrsÄ«dÄs and NandadÄs express that Sanskrit had become too difficult for some people, wherefore they made the text âeasy by making it vernacular.â66 ManohardÄs makes a similar statement, that his DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä bhÄá¹£Ä is for the understanding of the ignorant (bÄlaka).67 The idea of making a text âeasierâ is reminiscent of the connection of âbhÄá¹£Äâ to âbhÄá¹£ya,â with its embeddedness in scholastic tradition, and to its meaning as âcommentary.â The process of vernacularizing then refers to making a text understandable not only in terms of language, but also in terms of content. Indeed, bhÄá¹£Ä versions are known not to be one-to-one translations of a Sanskrit precedent, and to often âchangeâ the content of the source text. For this reason, I propose to conceptualize âbhÄá¹£Äâ as âvernacularization,â referring to the product of a process by which an earlier text (in Sanskrit) was adapted into a vernacular language, as well as into the typical character of a vernacular context. This meaning is linked to how anthropological and cultural studies came to understand vernacularization, emphasizing the everyday local context, and lived experience. Making something vernacular, then, means rendering it âunderstandableâ in terms of such familiarity.
The following sections seek to substantialize my idea of âbhÄá¹£Äâ using a comparative method. Firstly, I discuss the different degrees to which the Old Hindi text diverges in its narration from the Sanskrit âoriginal.â One type of variation is that the character of a story may be given a different name; another may be the inclusion of a completely new substory. Secondly, I discuss the style of ManohardÄsâs adaptation with its typical vernacular conventions. Although I discuss narrative content and style separately, the reader will notice that the two inevitably intersect with each other. In the final subsection, I analyze the vocabulary and syntactical equivalence between Amitagatiâs and ManohardÄsâs text, so as to assess ManohardÄsâs bhÄá¹£Ä in light of linguistic paradigms of translation.
2.1 A Vernacular Religiosity
The way in which ManohardÄs vernacularizes the narrative of the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä can be categorized into two types. One type pertains to religiosity and the other expresses the localization of society. The best way to illustrate these types is to let the text speak for itself, starting with a depiction of religiosity at PÄá¹alÄ«putra.
When Manovega describes to his friend what he has seen while looking down upon the city from the sky, he says about the Brahmins:
Some bathe in the Ganges, some make pÄn of tulsÄ« with mango shoots, some experience immersion in many ways, some recite the words âHari, Hari, Hari, Hari,â some wash themselves with dirt, some have their bodies covered, some wear RudrÄká¹£amÄlÄs, some wear twelve tilakas,68 some have a tilaka as a sectarian mark (chÄpa), some do pÅ«jÄ to YaÅodÄ and Nanda, some do pÅ«jÄ to BÄla Govinda (the child Ká¹á¹£á¹a), some do pÅ«jÄ to ÅÄligrÄma (a fossil representing Viá¹£á¹u), some do pÅ«jÄ to SÄ«tÄ and RÄma, some worship RÄdhÄ-Ká¹á¹£á¹a, some worship Madana GopÄla, some offer all sorts of food and worship full of bhakti. ⦠Some worship Åiva, some offer crown flowers and mango, ⦠Some worship the goddess, some smoke Guggul,69 some construct a maá¹á¸apa (temporary pavilion) of a banana plant, ⦠some wear a á¹Ä«kÄ of red sandal, ⦠some make many sons with women, and some devotees would obtain glory in the world.70
This passage reads as a sort of encyclopedic list of devotional or ritual Hindu practices, certain sentences describing Vaiá¹£á¹ava-oriented practices and others relating to Åaivism and ÅÄktism. The prevalence of bhakti as the focus of religion is obvious and different from the description of the Brahmins by Amitagati. Preceding these verses, ManohardÄs closely follows Amitagatiâs words, as he depicts PÄá¹alÄ«putra on the banks of the Ganges inhabited by scholarly Brahmins who recite the Vedas and teach the Smá¹tis, who debate, who make offerings to Agni, who discuss the eighteen PurÄá¹as and talk about tarka (âlogicâ), vyÄkaraá¹a (âgrammarâ), kÄvya (âpoetryâ), and nÄ«tiÅÄstra (âpoliticsâ).71
Making sense of why ManohardÄs would have added this bhakti-oriented depiction is not straightforward. Part of the explanation has to do with the historical context; the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries in North India are commonly known as the heyday of bhakti religiosity with different sampradÄyas of devotees following various spiritual leaders (including the RÄmÄnandis, Caitanyites, Vallabhites, and others).72 So perhaps ManohardÄsâs account refers directly to the prevalence of these bhakta practices in his surroundings in contrast to the situation at Amitagatiâs time. However, such a statement is problematic, since establishing the historical origin of religious practices with any certainty is near to impossible. Moreover, Hindu religiosity at the time of Amitagati was already characterized by devotional practices to different gods, most dominantly Åiva, Viá¹£á¹u, and DevÄ«.73 The mere fact that Amitagati attacks the Hindu gods so vigorously, who are, all in all, the centers of Hindu devotion, illustrates this. On the other hand, some of the practices described by ManohardÄs might have arisen after the writing of Amitagati or have been more prevalent then. For example, chanting Hariâs name became a dominant practice among the followers of Caitanya, and marking the body with twelve tilakas, also a Gauá¸Ä«ya practice, would have no earlier reference than the twelfth or thirteenth century-texts ĪÅvarasaá¹hitÄ and Agastyasaá¹hitÄ.74
Putting aside the difficulty of tracing the historical origin of religious practices, I believe that a valuable aspect of understanding this inclusion lies in looking at the literary contextâmore specifically, at the implications that arise from writing in a vernacular language. When trying to generalize the difference between Amitagatiâs portrayal of the city and that of ManohardÄs, we could suggest that PÄá¹alÄ«putra is depicted by Amitagati as a city of scholastics and religious orthodoxy with the Brahmins as its experts, whereas ManohardÄs depicts the city as one of religious practice and of diversity within Hindu ritualism. In a way, we can interpret this as reflecting the difference between the classical and the vernacular. Whereas Amitagati would give expression to a âhighâ form of the Brahmanical tradition, ManohardÄs is able to highlight the more âvernacularâ traditions within Hinduism.75 The word âvernacularâ here is used in its sociological connotation of âvernacular religiosity,â by which I mean a form of religion that is rooted in practice, that is localized, flexible, and understood in opposition to the more normative religion. It denotes an understanding of religion that emphasizes subjective and experiential aspects of religion âas it is lived,â butâthrough its connection to vernacular linguistics or vernacular artâleaves space for communal interpretations of religion.76 This binary, I must point out, is not absolute. ManohardÄsâ story, evidently, still stages the Brahmin interlocutors as religious authorities. Yet, in contrast to Amitagatiâwhose depiction of the Brahmins remains focused on purÄá¹ic and ÅÄstric knowledgeâManohardÄs presents a religious culture that is more inclusive of experiential and localized aspects.77 It is within this dialectic that the term âvernacularâ is useful in denoting this heterogeneity and flexibility of religion.78
Now, in connection with this interpretation I should also add that the practices described by ManohardÄs are not local in the sense of being connected to a precise geographical locality. Indeed, the practices of wearing a red á¹Ä«kÄ and marking oneself with a tilaka became relatively widespread through the networks of the religious communities to which they are (not exclusively) linked. Moreover, the practices of chanting the name âHari, Hariâ and wearing the rudrÄká¹£amÄlÄ are also mentioned in the corresponding part of the DhammaparikkhÄ by Hariá¹£eá¹a,79 which seems to suggest a continuity from Apabhraá¹Åa to Old Hindi literature. Instead, the practices described by ManohardÄs are local in that they originated within and often remained connected to specific sects (e.g., the worship of BÄla Govinda), and are inherently linked to more individual (devotional) forms of religion. Their depiction also invokes a visual imagination set in particular loci, which would be imagined as familiar by the audience. The persistent perceived contrast of these practices with âhighâ Hinduism further defines their vernacularity.
Taking into account the duality of the transregional and the local in these practices, we could interpret the addition by ManohardÄs as a premodern act of âglocalizationâ avant la lettre. This is a term borrowed from sociological studies to denote the entanglement of local and global (or here, transregional) phenomena.80 What I mean by âlocalâ in the present study of literary cultures is that which is specific to a geographical place and time, or can be imagined as spatially familiar and concrete by an audience of a specific place and time. âTransregional,â by contrast, is that which is imagined as belonging to any place or any time. By bringing together different vernacular religious practices in one city, our author depicts PÄá¹alÄ«putra as a truly cosmopolitan place, full of diversity, which elevates the status of the vernacular practices. We could even go as far as to suggest that PÄá¹alÄ«putra can be seen to mirror the text itself, as it is written in the vernacular with Sanskritic literary elements and contains both purÄá¹ic as well as folk narrativity. In this way, both the city and the text become mediums through which to regionalize or globalize vernacularity.
The vernacularization of religiosity in ManohardÄsâs DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä also involves a play with religious peer communities that are productive in Old Hindi literature. The following passage occurs toward the end of the plot, where the discussions with the Brahmins have ended and Pavanavega is taught about the faults in other religions.
People do acts of pÅ«jÄ and such, this is the cause of the fruit of shame [for them]. They do not understand [the consequences of] desiring sensuous objects. Know that these souls are without consciousness.
Tearing, drying, and causing suffering to the body, a yogi mendicant wastes his soul into worthlessness. He goes to the jungle, eats forest fruits, and in silence makes his body suffer. Rejecting asceticism in the standing pose, having gone from the market to the top of the mountain, where have you vanished into? Oh, [your] extension of anubhava (experience of the self through insight) is [only] outer juice; lies, oh lies, you would do everything.81
Whether one has repeated an incantation, whether one has performed asceticism, whether one who has received all the mysteries (bheda) has performed a vow, whether one has dwelled naked and has endured the heat of the sun on the body, whether one has gone to a pilgrimage place and has exhausted himself, whether one has remained in silence, or has meditated, whether he has endured cold or has recited the eternal Veda. When one has done this, it is said: he who is without a pure psychological state, he destroys all the fruits.
By reciting and repeating the lesson, one raises awareness of the whole story of the properties of the Jina, and of soul and non-soul. If one chants and honors the Hindu funeral and ancestral rites, [even] a conqueror of the world, if one bears affection that tears and seizes while worshipping, and if one remains in silence, one who does that much without concentration, who beats down love, he does not have affection with Nirañjana (âSupreme Selfâ).
âThus is the supremely pure, thus is the ocean of happiness, thus is what is mindful, thus is what is truthful. Thus is morality, thus is veneration for a pious ascetic (santa sÄdha), thus is virtuousness, thus is what is with suffering and without, thus is a celibate, thus is being filled with knowledge and meditation, thus is supporting vows, thus is that noble-minded warrior, thus is that wealthy tycoon.â The disciple of this, day and night, who is this man?âhe, who is absorbed in himself.
Without [correct] knowledge and view, one can renounce the material world for a crore of years, but will not get rid of oneâs awful sins. Says ManohardÄs [after] what has been written before.82
With the final sentence ManohardÄs returns to echoing the words of Amitagati (DPA 17.61) by dismissing dÄ«ká¹£Ä (ârenunciationâ) without proper understanding. This phrase motivates what comes before, namely an elaboration on several forms of religious practice that is not found in Amitagatiâs text. Especially interesting is the use of the terms ânirañjanaâ (DPM 1861) and âsanta sÄdhaâ (DPM 1862). While these may be used with a generic meaning, it is likely that they address specific religious groups that were prominent at the time.83 Both terms are commonly used by nirguá¹ bhakti traditions, which became popular mostly from the fifteenth century onward.84 The mention of Nirañjana as divine principle is especially reminiscent of the Sant traditions, including the NÄths and DÄdÅ«panthÄ«s, but it is also an appellation in Sufi and Ismaili traditions.85 The reference to yogic practices perhaps resonates with the nirguá¹ bhaktasâ reliance on NÄth-Yogic traditions.86
NÄths, DÄdÅ«panthÄ«s, and Sufis, as well as the emerging group of NirañjanÄ«s, were prolific writers of vernacular literature in seventeenth-century North India. Their communities lived alongside Jains in the towns of Rajasthan, and this seems to have led to mutual critiques, as Horstmann (2017) has shown for the NÄths and DÄdÅ«panthÄ«s. In the passage above, ManohardÄs without doubt participates in this dialogic play between religious communities. He depicts and mocks the religious practices (dharma-parÄ«ká¹£Ä) of the âproximate other,â to use J.Z. Smithâs (1985) terminology, who are closest to our Jain author in terms of location and occupation, as they too are often merchants and writers. It becomes apparent that multiple but cooperative processes are at play in this additional passage. ManohardÄs is motivated not only by the religious concern underlying the entire narrative, but also by his intertextual engagement with a vernacular literature that, perhaps, had a shared readership.
Stories about the epic and purÄá¹ic gods and other persona, which are central to the genre identity of the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä, are also subject to adaptation in ManohardÄsâs text. Sometimes, he adds details to the epicâpurÄá¹ic content of Amitagatiâs DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä, while in other cases he introduces completely new stories. These adaptations express not only the religious contexts, but, perhaps even more so, the narrative cultures within specific communities. I illustrate this briefly with a postlude by ManohardÄs to the story of the king and the mango tree, in which he draws on epicâpurÄá¹ic precedents to warn about the disadvantages and the faults of someone who does not reflect, just like the king who cries out in the end: âWhy did I order the fruit to be given to my son without inspection?â87
SÄ«tÄ was abducted by the lord of Laá¹ kÄ; RÄma and Laká¹£maá¹a became sad. On their request an army of fifty-six crores of lords, gods, and kings came.
After seeing TilottamÄâs beauty, Brahma became desirous to enjoy her.
Waving his hand up and down, Hara (Åiva) danced in front of GaurÄ« (PÄrvatÄ«).
If you know this, do not be arrogant. Who should now say more than this? Manohar says with his mind on spiritual matters: âThe whole world dwells in fate.â88
The connection between the story of the mango tree and the stories of SÄ«tÄ, TilottamÄ, and GaurÄ« is not straightforward. The verses preceding the passage are the exclamations of the king; the verses that follow this quotation are reflective, and comment upon the danger of having love or lust (kÄma) for someone without thinking it through (viveka). After that, ManohardÄs picks up the words of Amitagati again by stating: âHe who has knowledge is human, one without knowledge is an animal.â89 We are thus left to interpret the passage both in its own right, and by seeking parallels with the story of the king, against which it is juxtaposed. In that story, the passion or emotion (rÄga) that provoked the king to cut down the tree of mangos was the love for his son, and the anger or despair caused by the loss of his beloved son.90 The passion that causes RÄvaá¹aâs own destruction is also love, or rather desire, for SÄ«tÄ. In the case of Brahma, the passion is love for a woman, in the same sense of lust and desire. For Åiva this is not made explicit, but we can suppose the same. As such, a parallel is drawn between love for a son and love or lust for a woman; both unrationalized feelings are seen as the cause of faults. The mention of Åiva (Hara) dancing in front of GaurÄ« is interesting, because the idea of Åivaâs dance as a submissive act toward his wife is not a common image. Åiva is indeed associated with dance in his form as Naá¹arÄja, but this dance is not normally performed in front of GaurÄ«. Instead, his dance can take on several forms according to Åaiva literature and Indian classical dance theory, one of them being a dance together with GaurÄ« (GaurÄ« tÄá¹á¸ava).91 Indeed, both the imagery and the performances of Åiva and GaurÄ« dancing seem to depict a more equal stance between the two dance partners. There is one reference where Åiva is indeed dancing in front of GaurÄ«. This is in a purÄá¹ic episode where he dances for PÄrvatÄ« (GaurÄ«) and her mother MenÄ, who are then won over by his charms.92 All in all, I read in this âturning of rolesâ (the male god performing for the female) a creative interpretation of Åivaâs dance that serves well the purpose of degrading the Hindu gods and heroesâsuitable to the goal of the whole text.
The final phrase of this quote deserves some elaboration as well. In it, ManohardÄs asserts the idea that everything is predestined (honahÄr, âdwells in fateâ): one cannot escape the consequences of oneâs former life in this life, and every action of this life impacts the next life. While causality is a general concept in Jainism, the expression of determinism is rather characteristic of the writings of Kundakunda.93 In the same sentence ManohardÄs gives expression to adhyÄtma thought by emphasizing his spirituality of mind (mana rahasi). The narrative strategy that ManohardÄs seems to follow begins with a story of unthoughtful behavior, then builds up tension by expressing disapproval of the Hindu gods, to then, finally, in one sentence, return to his own approved-of ideology of ÄdhyÄtmika-inspired thought.
The final passage in this section deals with yet different âreligious others.â Here, we encounter Muslims. They are mentioned within a description of the Kali Yuga, set within a rather generic characterization of the avasarpiá¹Ä« (âdescendingâ) cycle, which Amitagati also mentions in order to introduce the idea of the time when all âhereticalâ views will be spread.94 Although this context of the degradation of times implies a negative evaluation, we must be careful not to straightforwardly read this as a critique of or act of opposition to Islam. More relevant is to note the Muslimsâ presence within an enumeration of groups of low castes that do not exclusively intersect with Islamic religion.
in KalikÄla (âthe corrupt ageâ) mithyÄ (âfalsityâ) is not discerned. There is no pure conduct, the Brahmins have deficient judgement. Whatever sins exist, they flow freely as the refrain of dharma. The fishermen, the washermen, the caá¹á¸Älas, the kÄchÄ«s,95 the butchers, the liquor-sellers, pickpockets, and robbers will be present again, the barbers, the oil-millers, the âthirteenth caste,â96 the sellers of betel-leaf, the weavers, the bards, the JÄá¹s,97 the sack makers, the sweepers, the shoemakers, the cane workers, the rice wine-distillers, the crop-sellers, the Muslims, who eat meat and drink liquor, the cotton-carders, and the goldsmiths [will flourish].98
The inclusion by ManohardÄs of low castes and Muslims in his description of temporal decline illustrates adaptive processes sensitive to the local context on two related levels.99 Firstly, it is important to recognize that the identification of Muslims and people of low caste as âmeat eatersâ and âliquor drinkersâ is not exclusively Jain. The association of Muslims, low castes, and outcastes with dharmic degradation and impurity also occurs in Sanskrit and other Indic literature.100 Moreover, based upon his study of Marathi bhakti hagiographies from the late seventeenth century onward, Jon Keune has recently described the intermingling of the categorization of Muslims and low jÄtÄ«s in these texts. He interprets this âswappabilityâ of the two categories as demarcating that âthe precise identities of the others in these stories are less important than the sheer fact that they are othersâ (2020, 115). Allusions to them are fuzzy, and function most importantly to demarcate an ontology of alterity that is based on impurity (Keune 2020, 116â117).101 The way in which ManohardÄs alludes to Muslims and low castes is equally fuzzy. Other than an enumeration within the context of Kali Yuga there is not much more to characterize them. As such, I read in this allusion to an ontology of âothernessâ that is common to bhakti authors, the evidence of ManohardÄsâs familiarity with the wider culture of North Indian vernacular literature and his intention to embed the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä within this literary culture. Secondly, the choice for these particular social groups as placeholders of âothernessâ is related to the historical context in which this otherness was expressed. Whereas in the tenth century Muslims did not yet have a significant presence in India, by the time of ManohardÄs they exercised political power over large parts of the subcontinent, and as a religious community formed a sizable section of Indian society. Therefore, the choice to identify them with the degradation of times shows a change in the sociocultural world of authors of the seventeenth century. A final point I want to make about this passage addresses the consequences for the reader/listener that follow from the historically changed and vernacularized âontology of alterity.â As I explained earlier, the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä as a whole marks the socio-religious identity of the reader/listener. The passage here that teaches of the Jain conception of âthe dark ageâ102 addresses the reader/listener directly in a religious sense and supposes him to identify (preâ or post-narratum) with Jainism. This Jain identity, in these passages, is one that excludes, or âothers,â not only Brahmins but also low caste individuals and Muslims.103
2.2 Localizing Society
Besides expressing âvernacular religiosity,â the adaptation by ManohardÄs localizes the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä in terms of social strata.
The first example of localization is found at the end of the story of the trader who cured the king with sandalwood.104 There, ManohardÄs adds to Amitagatiâs plot a sketch of the character of a trader. We hear the washerman cry out for his own stupidity and for the deceitfulness of the trader, but it may also be the voice of ManohardÄs himself that is reflected in the following passage:
âThe way in which he destroyed everything, there is no thug like the merchant. He has misled me, playing this gamble for wood. The trader did not forsake his trade, [thinking:] âThere is nothing deceitful in it.â Though he saw that he had caused injury, he looted everything and did his business.
Know this in mind, speech, and body: they say that he who trusts trade and is [himself] not deceitful, is deluded.
When you give him something to hold onto, [he] swallows it all. To his eyes, there is this concern: if there is less for himself, then there is more for another. What affection can there be for such a man?
At first, he is courteous, delighted, and wise. After he has purposefully brought about something terrible, when the task is completed, he becomes courteous again. A merchant is like a backbiter.
In his own place, he is like a lion. In a foreign country he is praised as a jackal. During sex, he is like a dog. At night, he is like a deer, according to his enemies. He bears complete silence like a heron. Like Bhīmsen he cannot resist a meal.105 Like a snake, he changes his clothes many times, and like a monkey, he does not rest in one place. He himself writes lines of letters, [listing] asafoetida, pepper, cumin, all sorts. Then after this he would have someone read it out. Terrified, he counts his money. Thus he is known in the world.
He is cruel and evil, and shows no compassion. What he sees, he loots, the entire universe. When a task has to be done, he makes humble requests. When the task is finished, he speaks boastfully. One who is successful in commerce, without displaying flattery, he lights fire as if to water, charcoal is not seen.
There is no wicked man like the merchant. He combines wealth with destruction. In his logic, a fine prostitute would be decent, [because] she sells her flesh openly.
The worst of all is the goldsmith, for him the merchant is the guru. [He says]: âKnow that he is the essence of virtue, full of righteousness, a true Jain layman!ââ¯â In this way the fire of regret burned the whole body of the washerman.
âA clever man deceives because of greedâ: [thus] were the words of the washerman.106
These verses are not gentle in their depiction of the merchant. He is blamed primarily for being treacherous, but the scandalization also pertains to aspects outside of his occupation (e.g., âhe is like a dog during sexâ and âhe eats like BhÄ«msenâ). Knowing that ManohardÄs worked in an environment of merchants, and that, in fact, his patrons belonged to that occupation, we can see that this passage must have had an impact on its audience. First of all, I should note that the topic of âtradeâ or âthe merchantâ was not uncommon in Jain literature;107 from this perspective, we could say that ManohardÄs is using a literary trope here. Nevertheless, ManohardÄsâs decision to include this elaboration was likely also stimulated by the recognition of who his intended audience was. ManohardÄs wanted the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä to speak to them and to trigger them. The audience listening to the moralistic stories would, without doubt, be âwoken upâ and react to the story, either in anger or in laughter. In my own opinion, the persiflage of the businessmanâs character would have evoked a humorous reaction. A merchant would indeed be able to recognize himself and his colleagues in this hyperbolic reflection of his life, but he would also recognize the ways in which this piece of literature exaggerates. Especially remarkable is ManohardÄsâs reproof of the goldsmith, the caste to which he himself belongs. This self-critical wit helps the audience to realize the humorous nature of the criticism. It is through familiarity that ManohardÄs is here displaying a cunning literary manner of localizing the text.
However, I believe that there is more going on than our authorâs holding a parodying mirror in front of his audience. As stated earlier, these words may well express the voice of ManohardÄs himself. The first reason to believe this lies in the length of the passage. My translation represents an outburst of thirteen verses in which the washerman sneers at the character of the merchant, but reference to the person who shouts these words is made only in the first and last verses. This means that we have an uninterrupted tirade of eleven verses in which we may well forget who is actually speaking. Is it the washerman, is it the person who âperformsâ the text, is it the author? The audienceâs perception of this âspeakerâ would be influenced by the medium of the text, so that in performance the intermingling of voices and, therefore, the possible critique by ManohardÄs of his sponsors and peers, would be stronger. The second reason to interpret this as a form of criticism is the praÅasti of this DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä. The praÅasti illustrates how ManohardÄs traveled from city to city to find new jobs with new patrons, and how his search was impacted by a change of interest from his patrons, or by money issues. Our author was, to a certain degree, dependent on the whims and caprices of his merchant sponsors. Criticism of his employers is therefore not surprising, especially when considering the self-reflexive attitude of the merchant community at that time and ManohardÄsâs belonging to that community.108 For these reasons, I understand this characterization of the merchant as a display of vernacular creativity that adapts the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä to the localized seventeenth-century context of merchant Jain communities, and gives expression to our authorâs personal voice. Furthermore, it well fits the overall plan of the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä since it uses humor (exaggeration and irony) to critically reflect on certain kinds of behavior, not to forget the mentioning of the Jain path by which to overcome these flaws.
An illustration of how the local and global can go together may be found in the following sentences, which appear after the story of the child who stayed in his motherâs womb for twelve years:
Though we have seen the entire East, with Paá¹aá¹Ä in BihÄr etc., and all of Bengalâwe even saw Gauá¸a109 thenâRÅ«ma, and SÄma,110 Kabul, Khandahar and Khurasan, and the whole Westâwe even saw KalÄnaura111âthough we have seen the foot of the mountains etc., the banks of the Ganges, as well as other placesâwe saw the whole South, Gujarat, and Bijapur, nowhere have we seen any boy like you.112
These lines map out geographically the world of ManohardÄs. Speaking here in the plot are the Brahmins, who express their disbelief in Manovegaâs stories by stating that in this whole area they have not encountered anyone like Manovegaâor at least like what he says about himself. Because this verse is meant to express the validity of their disbelief, the Brahmins must delimit here a region that extends far and wide and is thus able to support that validity. The map drawn by the Brahmins stretches over the Indian subcontinent from Bengal in the east to Punjab in the west, and from the Bijapur Sultanate in the south to the Himalayan mountains, and even up to Turkey and Arabia (RÅ«ma and SÄma) in the northwest. It is interesting to see that the world described here includes large parts of the Middle East, whereas (âHinduâ) parts of the subcontinent are left out. This goes against our expectations when we consider the fact that those speaking are Brahmins, from whom we would expect mention of places connected with Hindu religiosity, to which they would have traveled on pilgrimage. If the area mapped out here does not exactly accord with the plot and the characters doing the mapping, then what could this geographical delineation denote?
For the compound rÅ«ma-sÄma, the Dictionary of Bhakti (Callewaert 2009) refers to JÄyasÄ«âs PadmÄvat in AvadhÄ« (1540 CE). Indeed, these place names are found in the forty-second canto of JÄyasÄ«âs famous PremÄkhyÄn when sultan Alauddin Khalji raises an army to go into battle against Chittaur to conquer PadmÄvatÄ«. JÄyasÄ« describes how rulers from everywhere join the sultan in their march to Chittaur:
Those famous nobles and chiefs who marched, how shall I describe the manner of their adornment? Khurasan marched and Hareu: from Gaur and Bengal none remained behind. The sultans of Rum (Turkey) and of Sam (Syria) did not remain behind, or of Kashmir, Thatta or Multan. All the principal races of Turks, the people of Mandau and of Gujarat, the people of Patna and Orissa all came, bringing with them all the best bull elephants. The people of Kanvaru of Kamta and of Pindwa came; they came from Dewagiri as far as Udaya-giri. The hill men came from as far as Kumaon; the Khasiyas, the Magars and all such names.
All the lands that are from the rising to the setting of the sun, who knows their names? All the seven continents and the nine divisions were assembled and met together. (Shireff 1944, 291)
This quote from the PadmÄvat shows interesting similarities to ManohardÄsâs words. JÄyasÄ« also seems to describe as much of the world as possible, as he expresses that all the lands of the seven continents and nine divisions were there,113 but that no one knows all their names. Next to RÅ«ma and SÄma, he also mentions some of the other places that we have encountered in ManohardÄsâs DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä, namely Khurasan, Gaur, Bengal, Gujarat, and Patna. Again, the significance of these places (and others) is not absolutely clear. The story of the PadmÄvat itself suggests that all these regions must have been ruled by chiefs who had allegiances to the Delhi Sultanate under Allaudin Khalji. This indeed seems to be more or less accurate. Khurasan and Hareu (identified as Herat) were ruled by Turks, as were the sultanates of RÅ«ma and SÄma,114 and Bengal and Gaur were under the power of the Khaljis. Mandaur, the capital of Malwa, would also have been under Allaudin Khaljiâs rule after his conquest of Malwa in 1305. As for the more southern regions, Dewagiri (now Daulatabad) had been subdued by Allaudin in 1306 (Shireff 1944, 288). At the same time, JÄyasÄ« suggests that all the lands in the world were assembled to march against Chittaur. By means of this literary image, he suggests a connection between the world of the Khaljis (and the ruling Turks) and the world that was known at that time. Such a connection establishes the possibility for this geographical delimitation to become a literary trope. Another attestation of rÅ«ma-sÄma in Old Hindi texts occurs in KabÄ«râs BÄ«jak, where he says, âIn every quarter of the earth are cities with inhabitants, Rum, Sham, Delhi in the midstâ (Shah 1917, 137). Again, these locations are connected to a delineation of the whole world, here, even as both lie on opposite sides of Delhi. It is clear in this case that these faraway places (Rum and Sham) were imagined in literature as a trope to define some boundary. To suggest something similar in respect of the other places mentioned by JÄyasÄ« seems not too far-stretched.
Returning now to ManohardÄsâs text, I indeed suggest that ManohardÄs gets his inspiration from other Old Hindi worksâperhaps even from the PadmÄvat itself. The freedom with which ManohardÄs here goes about Amitagatiâs text is another vernacularizing âinterference.â He adapts the text to the literary milieu in which the bhÄá¹£Ä is situated by making use of literary tropes from North Indian vernacular literature. At the same time, he surpasses the strictly local (be it a socio-religious or geographical locality), linking his composition to the transregional community of other Old Hindi, including AvadhÄ«, texts. Moreover, the geography of the passage itself underlines this âextra-localâ engagement, because the characters situate themselves within a world that is Islamic and Turkish (thus related to the governing power in North India) and not exclusively Brahmanical or Jain. Other than these two quite lengthy passages, there are several shorter instances in which the Old Hindi text hints at a local social context. For example, in the story about the fourth of the four fools, ManohardÄs tells us how a medicine man asks a fee of fifty rupees and one buffalo for his services. To its seventeenth-century audience this must have seemed a ridiculously high sum for curing a disease.115 By making the price tangible, ManohardÄs strengthens the humorous effect of the story.116
2.3 A Vernacular Style: Framing and Orality
For ManohardÄs to fully participate in the early modern vernacular literary culture, he needs to create an adaptation that has the stylistic markers of that literature. One feature that contributes to this is ManohardÄsâs authorial voice in the text as independent from Amitagati. Orality is another feature discussed in the following pages that marks ManohardÄsâs text as a bhÄá¹£Ä.
From the very beginning, ManohardÄs announces his personal presence to his readers. As early as the second verse he establishes authority in his (lay) guru VegrÄj. This is quite different from the veneration shown by Amitagati toward the paradigmatic ascetics, as established in the famous namokÄr mantra (DPA 1.1â6). ManohardÄs refers to his patron HÄ«rÄmaá¹i only three verses further on. The positioning both in time and in geography of ManohardÄsâs adaptation is much more limited: his version is of the here and the now. The discrepancy in the introductory positioning of the text and its author between the Sanskrit and the Old Hindi DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä can be traced to a difference in literary conventions between the literatures of Sanskrit and of the vernacular. Clines, for example, has noted a similar discrepancy in the works of the Sanskrit/Old Hindi author JinadÄsa (2022, 122). The fact that we find similar strategies in multiple Jain bhÄá¹£Äs suggests that these individual vernacular texts, unlike their Sanskrit counterparts, aspire to engage with a local literary culture that is linked to a local Digambara community. Interestingly, the Apabhraá¹Åa DhammaparikkhÄ by Hariá¹£eá¹a orients his opening toward previous poets, and we find such an orientation also in other Apabhraá¹Åa texts, such as SvayambhÅ«âs SvayambhÅ«cchandas (Bhayani 1953, 7). Perhaps this form of self-awareness in the opening of a text is linked to an awareness of language.
ManohardÄs explicitly writes himself into the text by reminding the reader at several occasions that he has authored this DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä. The phrase âkahai manoharadÄsaâ (âsays ManohardÄsâ) is found throughout the text. It always follows some kind of moral evaluation, be it a lengthy passage or just a short interdiction. There are some instances where we read âsays ManohardÄsâ within or after an exposition on Jain thought. For example, at the beginning of the story, within the frame narrative when Manovega encounters muni Jinamati, the latter explains to his pupil (Manovega) the nature of happiness, suffering, and transmigration. Toward the end of this discourse we read in the Old Hindi DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä:
Such a bad person, who seeks happiness for his liberation, puts faith in transmigration, says ManohardÄs.117
Although the words themselves are not exactly his inventionâthey are freely âtranslatedâ from Amitagatiâs version (DPA 2.71)âthis sentence rather straightforwardly convinces us of the fact that ManohardÄs himself propagates Jain thought. A similar instance of âsays ManohardÄsâ is found in verse 1393, where he explains the eighteen faults that cause suffering in the world.
Sometimes ManohardÄs refers to himself within an exposition on morality that is not markedly Jain. After the story of Bahudhanika and his two wives (Kuraá¹ gÄ« and SundarÄ«), our author devotes a few sentences to the bad character of women. These are put into the mouth of the Brahmin, who tries to explain to Bahudhanika what his youngest wife had done. In the end ManohardÄs writes:
A woman is like a snake, believe this, desiring her lasts only for one day, says ManohardÄs.118
Again, the inspiration to compare a woman to a snake comes from Amitagati, so these words are not really those of ManohardÄs. Moreover, there is an incoherence between the fact that according to the plotline a Brahmin is speaking here, and the insertion âManohardÄs says.â We start to get the idea that, rather than being a mere filler, ManohardÄs uses this phrase to transfer the authority of Amitagati onto himself.
Somewhat differently, âkahai manoharadÄsaâ occurs in combination with a moral evaluation that is very short, comprising only one or two verses. The shortest example occurs in the story of Åiva, who cut off the donkey-head that Brahma had acquired by gazing at TilottamÄ. When this head remains stuck to the hand of Åiva, ManohardÄs exclaims:
By destroying happiness and luster, sin will stick to him, says ManohardÄs. In the same way, the head stuck to his hand.119
Again, ManohardÄs expresses a certain self-awareness and presents himself as a moral specialist. In fact, this kind of multiple, condensed self-referencing is common within Old Hindi literature and is designated bhaá¹itÄ (âcomposerâs nameâ) or chÄp (âstampâ). It is most significative of Old Hindi devotional songs, where the name of the (ascribed) author is mentioned at the end of each pada. Indeed, ManohardÄsâs signature probably best reminds us of the poems of KabÄ«r, who uses the same formulaic ending âkahai kabÄ«raâ in his padas (Mishra 1987, 172). The poetic signature was also frequently used in Old Hindi muktakas (âindependent poemsâ), and Lath has argued that this was through the influence of song tradition (1983, 226). The bhaá¹itÄ need not necessarily appear in combination with a verb to indicate its syntactical relation, but can also consist solely of the authorâs name.120 For that reason, Hawley argues that the significance of the poetic signature involves more than merely citing an authorâs name. He sees it as a âstampâ or âsealâ (chÄp) that gives the poem its proper weight and tone, as it puts the poemâs words into the mouth of a teacher (guru) around whom devotion is centered (1988, 287). While I would not argue that such a personal devotional layer of meaning is implied in ManohardÄsâs use of bhaá¹itÄs, it is noticeable how ManohardÄs resonates this âdevotional songâ-setting, especially in the first (and in the second) example I have given.121 The significance of the formula âkahai manoharadÄsa,â next to naming the author, is that it expresses a definite literary style of this version of the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä in two related ways: firstly, the reminiscence of bhakti songs illustrates how the text draws from different genres and traditions to express its own style; secondly, through the interlacing of the language of songs within the narrative, the text breathes a vocal aura in certain parts, and thus, as a whole, intermingles oral features with written aspects. Such a literary style is characteristic of the North Indian vernacular kathÄ genre, which Orsini has argued to have gained momentum in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.122 Indeed, compositions such as Tulsidasâs RÄmcaritmÄnas, Viá¹£á¹udÄsâs epics, or JinadÄsaâs PÄá¹á¸avcarit all share this suggestion of orality in their poetry.123
The poetic signature is not the only indication of song or lyricism in this Old Hindi version of the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä. At some points in the text, we find words or verse sections that are repeated with a certain sequence, as would be the refrain of a song. For example, at the beginning of the text, during the exposition of muni Jinamati to Manovega, the words âlobhÄ« guru ko sei kariâ are repeated over eight verses.124 These verses, as the ârefrainâ (á¹ek) suggests (âIf one serves a greedy/faulty guruâ), warn the listener of the perils of adhering to a bad teacher.125 The âsongâ itself indicates that it contains an instruction for whoever is listening (âStudent, listen to thisâ), which concurrently expresses the oral character of this instruction. The verses switch between dohÄ and sorathÄ, which adds to the argument that these verses were meant to be vocalized and sung.126
Repetition similar to that just discussed, is of only a single word, âlobha,â in the passage that introduces the setubandha story of the RÄmÄyaá¹a. ManohardÄs repeats this word ten times within one chappay.127 Here, the repetition not only of a word, but, in my opinion, also of the specific meter, indicates the song-like character of the verses. The chappay meter does not occur frequently within ManohardÄsâs text. Because of that, I read its use as suggesting âsomething differentâ or âsomething includedâ (such as a song), within the continuing narrative. It is interesting to note that the chappay meter occurs infrequently in another Jain purÄá¹ic kathÄ, namely the SÄ«tÄcarit, and that Plau has argued this meter to be associated with âdevotional ardorâ and hymns (2018, 148; 2019b, 194). Perhaps a similar connection with the chappay meter exists in ManohardÄsâs text. The passage here does not praise or benedict, but instead does the contrary: it proclaims the evils that have come from greed, and in that way reverts the hymnic use of the chappay in the SÄ«tÄcarit. We may hypothesize how this metrical association became typical in similar Jain compositions, but further sources would be needed to ascertain this. Overall, the meter together with the repetition and the content suggest that these verses on âlobhaâ were meant to be voiced, perhaps sung, as such fortifying the instruction that is implied in them. This lyricism of ManohardÄsâs composition, which is also suggested by other meters such as the gÄ«tÄ, renders the text independent from its Sanskrit âoriginal,â while simultaneously embedding it in the Hindi kathÄ genre, whose literary style draws from multiple genres, like devotional songs, in forming its own expression.
For the sake of completeness, I would like to indicate three further instances of repetition. After the story of Yajña and YajñÄ, ManohardÄs points out the faults in women, just as Amitagati does, and elaborates on this topic in four savaiyÄs that repeat the words âceta acetaâ in the middle of every verse. Further in the text, after finishing the stories of the ten fools and in an attack on Viá¹£á¹u, ManohardÄs questions why the Hindu god in his several incarnations had hidden his divine nature. He does so by drawing equivalence between Viá¹£á¹uâs covering up and the concealment by several low castes of their jÄti (âcasteâ), in two verses of which each pÄda starts with the word âjÄtiâ (DPM 1011â1012). Toward the end of the narrative there is also repetition in the comparison of a good versus a bad person. ManohardÄs first repeats the words âvihvala buddhi nivÄraâ (âRemove the perturbed mindâ) and then âtina kai mastaka dhÅ«liâ (âHis mind is full of dustâ) (DPM 1978â1979). In each of these three cases, the repetition of a word or group of words draws the attention of the audience, who (ideally) is listening to the text. It calls for their mindfulness and thus stimulates the instructive power of the verses.
The examples above all illustrate how orality, another feature common in Old Hindi narratives, is implied in this DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä. Further sentences express more explicitly the oral dimension of the Old Hindi adaptation. When ManohardÄs is about to introduce the character Pavanavega, he writes, âListen to the story that is about the other brother!â Such a verse effectively draws the attention of the audience, who is, at that point in the frame narrative, the only dialogic partner of the text. Furthermore, the word âsunoâ (âListen!â) implies a performative context of the text. ManohardÄsâs words are meant to be heard rather than read, and we can easily imagine how these instructive stories were recited in sermonic contexts. Secondly, the signposting function of this phrase, which introduces the next story (in combination with the closing previous phrase: âThis is then the story that remains hereâ) is characteristic of oral/performative contexts, where signposts are necessary to keep the attention of the audience.
Further in the text we find similar uses of the verb âsun-â (âto hearâ), for example, at the end of the story of the fool who suffered from bile-disease. However, here, because of the plot setting that is a dialogue between Manovega and the Brahmins, there is some duality in the intended audience:
Take [now] this story of the mango. It [the previous story] was told and I have listened to it like to a beloved. For who listens there is wisdom, so listen and lend your ears.128
These verses are uttered within the plot by Manovega to the Brahmins. However, because of the directness in speech and the simplicity with which we move from the previous story to this one, the verse gives the impression of addressing the audience of the text. It is important here to point out the equivalent verse in the text by Amitagati. The Sanskrit author also asks the audience to listen to the story of the mango, but his request is directed in a different way:
To you honorable men, [the story of] the bile-sick [fool] whose mind is contrary, was told. Now [the story of the] the mango tree will be told. Listen attentively!129
The similarity between the verses by the two authors is obvious, and in Amitagatiâs verse too we can wonder whether âthe honorable menâ are the Brahmins of the narrative, or the erudite audience of Amitagatiâs text. Nevertheless, whereas Amitagatiâs formulation maintains a certain distanceâas is characteristic for a Sanskrit textâManohardÄsâs form of address is much more pressing and would have had a more direct impact on his audience. Leaving aside how the author meant the above verse to be understood, we cannot omit the possibility that the audience understood it as though ManohardÄs were stepping out of the narrative to express his own voice. Indeed, within North Indian vernacular texts there are ample examples of verbs that refer to listening or sentences that remind of the dialogue between the author/reciter and the audience when a text is told or performed.130 The manner in which ManohardÄs interpolates such connections with the audience again shows how he creates a version of the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä that is vernacular both in language and in literary style.
The primary model with which ManohardÄs aligns his bhÄá¹£Ä is that of the Old Hindi kathÄ. Not only does he retell a story that is heavily dependent on epic and purÄá¹ic themes, as are many vernacular kathÄs of this period;131 also like the kathÄs, ManohardÄsâs text is highly influenced by other literary genres of the time, and plays with typical early Hindi meters, predominantly the caupaÄ« alternated with the dohÄ, as well as newly evolved ones, alluding to an orality that suggests its performative potential.132
2.4 The Process of bhÄá¹£Ä through a Linguistic Lens
Thus far, I have analyzed the concept of bhÄá¹£Äâthe term used by ManohardÄs to describe his workâby considering the characteristic features of his DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä in comparison to the Sanskrit text it emulates and in relation to the literary culture at the time. However, in order to assess more fully the semantics of bhÄá¹£Ä as an early modern term that represents ideas of adaptation and translation, I take a close look at the vocabulary and syntactical choices made by our Old Hindi author in this section. My analysis will show how ManohardÄs translated Amitagatiâs text with various degrees of equivalence. While some excerpts from his text will prove to be near literal translations, other passages are rather renditions primarily bound by sense.133 This continuum of equivalence and bhÄá¹£Äâs connotation of linguistic difference together suggest that bhÄá¹£Ä offers an early modern North-Indian concept worthy to consider alongside and in relation to traditional Western concepts of translation.
ManohardÄsâs attention to equivalence with the work he consciously renders into the vernacular appears already in the very first verse of the narrative (after the maá¹ galÄcaraá¹a).
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DPA 1.1 |
DPM v. 11 |
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ÅrÄ«mÄn nabhasvat-traya-tuá¹ ga-ÅÄlaá¹ jagad-gá¹haá¹ bodhamaya-pradÄ«paḥ| samantato dyotayate yadÄ«yo bhavantu te tÄ«rthaá¹karÄḥ Åriye naḥ|| |
ÅrÄ«mÄna pavana tÄ«na prakÄra virÄjamÄna jagata-svarÅ«pÄ«-ghara baiá¹hi rahyau tina syau| aise ghara mÄá¹hi jinabodha dÄ«pa vyÄpi rahyo tina ko pratÄpa hai anaá¹ta guá¹o dina syoá¹| anaá¹ta catuá¹£taya guá¹a-pÅ«rá¹a virÄjai tÄ mai arihaá¹ta siddha raga-doá¹£a-gayo jina syoá¹| dharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä bhÄá¹£Ä bÄlaka subuddhi hetu buddhi sÄru kahÅ«á¹ tÄtai vÄ«natÄ« hai ina syau|| |
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Let these tīrthaṠkaras serve our prosperity; whose splendid light full of knowledge shines all around on the house of the world that has three atmospheric enclosures.134 |
Let the glorious light of the Jinasâ knowledge settle because of them in this house that is the world, splendid with its three atmospheres, and let it pervade in this house. Their splendor has endless qualities like the day, and shines endlessly in this [world] in the four directions, full of virtues, because of the accomplished Jinas who are free from the sins of passion. I narrate this DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä BhÄá¹£Ä, the essence of intelligence, for the proper understanding of the ignorant.135 So humbly I bow to those [Jinas]. |
ManohardÄs begins his verse with the Sanskritic word ÅrÄ«mÄna that also announces the beginning of the text in Amitagatiâs text. Syntactically, he uses a similar structure as his literary predecessor, rendering first the adjectives and appositions that qualify the predicate (ghara; in Sanskrit gá¹ham) before giving the words that form the main clause (baiá¹hi rahyau âlet settleâ, and vyÄpi rahyo âlet pervadeâ, as verbs, dÄ«pa âlightâ as subject; in Sanskrit dyotayate âshinesâ as verb, pradÄ«paḥ âlightâ as subject). The fact that this kind of structure is not common in the rest of the text illustrates that ManohardÄs draws directly from the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä by Amitagati to open his narrative.
The similarity in the opening verse is evident, but there are stronger levels of equivalence to be found between the two texts. The following verse serves as an example of one of the closest types of transfer from the Sanskrit source text into Old Hindi displayed by ManohardÄs.
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DPA 1.35 |
DPM v. 46 |
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candraḥ kalaá¹ kÄ« tapano âtitÄpÄ« jaá¸aḥ payodhiḥ kaá¹hinaḥ surÄdriḥ| yato âmarendro âjani gotrabhedÄ« tato na te yasya samÄ babhÅ«vuḥ|| |
ÅaÅi kalaá¹ka dinapati tapai| jara payodha sahi toá¹£a| meru kaá¹hina ripu gotra ko| iá¹du nirapati niradoá¹£a|| |
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As the moon is soiled, the sun burns, the ocean is cold, Mount Meru is tough, [and] Indra was born as destroyer of the cowsheds [of the sky], not even these [divine beings] are equal to him. |
The moon is black, the sun is burning, the cold ocean enduring with pleasure, Mount Meru is tough, Indra is the enemy to the cowsheds [of the sky], [but] this king is faultless. |
The equivalence in the vocabulary of these two verses is striking. ManohardÄs uses mostly tatsama words where he also could have chosen tadbhava or deÅÄ« Old Hindi vocabulary, and places them in almost the same order.136 Also in the following example, ManohardÄs has clearly used the same set of vocabulary as is found in Amitagatiâs text. However, the type of vocabulary in both the Sanskrit and the Old Hindi text is of a different order than before, in the sense that it is simpler. Perhaps the choice for tatsama and tadbhava words based on Amitagatiâs vocabulary in ManohardÄsâs verse is motivated by the lesser availability of synonyms in the vernacular language.
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DPA 11.8 |
DPM v. 1002 |
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aputrasya gatir nÄsti svargo na ca tapo yataḥ| tataḥ putra-mukhaá¹ dá¹á¹£á¹vÄ Åreyase kriyate tapaḥ|| |
aputrīka koṠgati nahī| svarga nahī tisa vīra| prathama putra mukha dekhikai| phira tapa lījai dhīra|| |
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Whereas for a sonless person neither heaven nor asceticism is a prospect, once one has seen the face of oneâs son, one can commit to asceticism for spiritual prosperity. |
For a sonless person there is no prospect, there is no heaven for this man. But once he has seen the face of his first son, then he can take up asceticism with steadfastness. |
The linguistic transfer from Sanskri into Old Hind applied in this verse is arguably an example of how modern linguists have defined a âliteral translationâ, namely as a âword-for-word translation [that] make[s] changes in conformity with T[arget]L[anguage] grammarâ (Catford 1965, 25).137 ManohardÄsâs text stays as close to the original as possible and only adapts the verse to Old Hindi meter adding also rhyme. Along the same lines is the example below where ManohardÄs reuses certain words from Amitagatiâs text motivated by their function as epithets.
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DPA 2.30 |
DPM v. 126 |
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sundarÄḥ subhagÄḥ saumyÄḥ kulÄ«nÄh ÅÄ«la-ÅÄlinaḥ| bhavanti dharmato daká¹£Äḥ ÅaÅÄá¹ ka-yaÅasaḥ sthirÄḥ|| |
suá¹dara subhaga kulÄ«na deá¹£i| ÅÄ«lavaá¹ta jasaá¹£Äni| samadiá¹£á¹i vÄá¹i madhura| punna udai te jÄni|| |
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The handsome, the fortunate, the gentle, the well-born, the virtuous, those who are splendid like the moon, clever and firm, they are so because of dharma. |
Look at the handsome, the fortunate, the well-born, the virtuous, the mine of splendor. They know that virtue arises from the sweet words of correct insight. |
In terms of meaning, these two verses are the same. ManohardÄs has chosen to replace dharma by samadiá¹£á¹i (samyakdá¹á¹£á¹i), which is a more precise wording for what Amitagati actually refers to (i.e. âcorrect dharmaâ).138 The Old Hindi author also uses a more direct style of phrasing as is common in vernacular texts. The direct equivalence between the two texts is expressed through the use of words that refer to types of people: suá¹dara (âthe handsomeâ), subhaga (âthe fortunateâ), kulÄ«na (the well-born), ÅÄ«lavaá¹ta (âthe virtuousâ; ÅÄ«la-ÅÄlinaḥ in Sanskrit) and jasaá¹£Äni (âthe mine of splendorâ, âthose who are splendidâ; yaÅasaḥ in Sanskrit). ManohardÄs has not copied the gentle person (saumya). This may be explained by the metrical limitations of the dohÄ in which the verse was composed.
The three previous examples illustrate how understanding the category of bhÄá¹£Ä simply as âtranslationâ, in the conventional modern sense, is not incorrect for certain instances in the text. They further evidence that, in the process of creating his adaptation, ManohardÄs made use of manuscripts of the text by Amitagati. Continuing along the continuum of equivalence, the next example demonstrates how one verse can be translated both freely and faithfully with respect to Amitagatiâs text.
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DPA 6.11 |
DPM v. 565 |
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sneha-ÅÄkhÄ« gato vá¹ddhiá¹ rati-manmathayor iva| siktaḥ sÄá¹gatyato yena tayor iá¹£á¹a-phala-pradaḥ|| |
sneha-vá¹ká¹£a ativá¹dhati kiyo| saá¹ga toi karikai sÄ«ciyau| parasa parasa hita phÅ«la apÄra| dÅ«á¹yoá¹ vÄá¹chita phala dÄtÄra|| |
|
The tree of love between the two grew, like that of KÄma and Rati. Their union watered it so bestowing enjoyable fruits. |
The tree of love was made to grow. Their union sprinkled it with water. Touch upon affectionate touch, boundless flowers grew, bestowing enjoyable fruits upon those two. |
In the first, the second and the final pÄdas ManohardÄs renders the verse by Amitagati quite literally into Old Hindi. They envelop the third pÄda where ManohardÄs omits the simile about KÄma and Rati and adds another ornamental phrase. The first and final pÄdas in particular mirror the Sanskrit verse closely through their word order: in the first pÄda both authors use the order âlove-tree-growsâ and in the final pÄda they write words meaning âboth-wished-fruits-givenâ.
All the above examples exist as comparisons of single verses in the Sanskrit text with corresponding discrete verses in the Old Hindi text. The fact that such direct comparisons are possible demonstrates that the process of creating this Old Hindi DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä involved translation of textual units limited to the verse level. While in some cases ManohardÄs transposed the Sanskrit verse almost word-by-word into an Old Hindi verse, in other cases he rather transmitted the meaning or sense of a verse. However, the textual units that our author transposed from the Sanskrit source text to his own Old Hindi version are not limited to verses. Boundaries of transposed meaning can enclose multiple verses and are in fact mostly conform to the unit of a substory.
Before, however, illustrating how ManohardÄs translates one substory, I will give an example of one verse that is translated by two verses, in order to illustrate in detail this loosening of boundaries.
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DPA 6.54 |
DPM v. 610â611 |
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brahmacÄrÄ« Åucir daká¹£o vinÄ«taḥ ÅÄstra-pÄragaḥ| dá¹Åyate tvÄdá¹Åo yajña kulÄ«no baá¹ukaḥ kutaḥ|| |
ÄjñÄkÄrÄ« paá¹á¸ita rÄi, sucÄ« vinÄ«ta catura sukha-dÄi, ÅÄstra-samudra bhayo tari pÄri| janama pÄra brahmacÄrÄ«-sÄra|| aho ká¹tÄá¹ta kahÄ tuma kahÅ«| aiso vaá¹uka kahÄ ava lahuá¹ [â¦]|| |
|
Such a pure and clever student, modest and skilled in the ÅÄstras, where is such an eminent lad such as you found, O Yajña? |
The commanding Paá¹á¸it-king [said]: âHe was pure, modest, clever, and joy-giving, a ship that crossed the ocean of ÅÄstras, the essential student, [now] at the end of this birth. Ah, what fate, I tell you! Where do I find now such a lad?â |
This example again clearly bears traces of the textual source that ManohardÄs used in making his bhÄá¹£Ä, but here he does not remain within the same textual unit as his source text (i.e. one verse). Further, when we compare the larger textual unit of a substory, the direct correspondence to the source becomes less substantial, though not imperceptible. The following comparison of the story of the third among four fools, will illustrate the way in which most of the Sanskrit text is transposed into Old Hindi. I have chosen this particular example because among potential substories, this one illustrates the point I want to make in a relatively brief manner.
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DPA 9.43â55139 |
DPM 930â942140 |
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When the second [fool] had ended telling his story, the third fool started to tell his enthusiastically: âDear citizens, I will now tell you of my own stupidity. Focus your attention and think about it. Once, I went to my father-in-law and I brought along my beloved. In the night when she had gone to bed, without speaking, I told her: âO thin-waisted one, whoever of us two speaks first, he or she must send for ten pupa cakes rolled in ghee and molasses.â Then the lovely girl said: âSo be it! The words of a husband are never opposed by women of good birth.â While we were staying there and had come to this agreement, a thief entered the house and took all our belongings. He took all our possessions in the house and left nothing. In such opportunity, thieves overpower lovers. When the thief began to steal the undergarments of my beloved, she said [to me]: âYou brute, how can you disregard this now, even when my undergarment is pulled off?! How can you live [with yourself]?! You cheat! For men of good birth, life is worth living until their wife is humiliated.â Having heard her words, I laughed and said: âYou lost, you lost! O love, you spoke first! You must now give me the promised ten pupa cakes mixed with ghee and molasses, O lotus-eyed one.â See this stupidity of me, which allowed all the wealth that I earned earlier, that was difficult to attain and full of prosperity and righteousness, to be taken away. Then the people gave me the name Boda. What ridicule does a man out of false pride not come to?â |
The third fool [then] spoke: âPlease, listen to this case, O lords! There is no fool like me. Listen to what I have done, dear people. Once, I went to my father-in-law and I brought along my beloved. Having gone there, my wife made me enjoy the night, giving me great passion and joy. While together for many days, we said words to each other that stimulated our love and increased our happiness. Because of this, my semen arose. The two of us had been exchanging words, while two strokes [of the night] had gone by. âWhoever speaks first, my love, should send for ten puvÄ cakesâ, [I said]. My wife vowed for freshly made ones rolled in ghee and molasses, not neglecting [my proposal]: âThus it will be, my husband! A virtuous woman does not run away from her task.â Then something happened that caused misfortune. A thief arrived there, and that scoundrel took all our belongings. But neither of us two said a word. He took everything; curse him! What a breath-taking affair was that. A lover is the darling of a thief, the fearless king of that place. Then, the thief pulled off my belovedâs garments, [so that] she did not have any clothes on, O fool! Then my love spoke, filled with rage: âYou idiot, are you sick?! Curse you! Now your soul has fallen, now there is dishonor for your wife. Because of that man, look indeed at the cremation ground in mind and speech.â Listening to the words of my beloved, this fool I am laughed and answered: âYou lost, you lost the agreement that we made earlier in our heart! As you are defeated, give the cakes, rolled in ghee and molasses! Do not be lazy, O lotus-eyed one! Ten pÅ«vÄ cakes and your virtue is safe.â Our fathers consider the domains of acquired wealth, dharma and love.141 But a fool [like me] considers [only] desire. Acting thus, I lost my beloved. Understand this in your mind: and do not make a refrain out of my words. Because of this, I lost my good name and wealth.â So it is, says Manohara. |
The above comparison is illustrative of ManohardÄsâs overall translatory method in creating his bhÄá¹£Ä, without disregarding the characteristic insertions and omissions discussed earlier in this chapter. Throughout these verses, ManohardÄs intermittently moves closer to and further away from Amitagatiâs source text. While both DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Äs use approximately the same number of verses to tell the entire substory, the verses of each text do not exactly accord with each other (as would be in sentence-to-sentence translation). For example, the exchange of sweet words between the lovers in DPM v. 932 is not told in Amitagatiâs text. In terms of vocabulary, like in the excerpts discussed before, ManohardÄs echoes Amitagatiâs choice of words in v. 936 (jara-caura) and v. 939 (hÄrita hÄrita). Our Old Hindi author is clearly inspired by the text of his literary predecessor, but he feels free to capture the story in his own creative way.
Considering this passage in light of traditional Translation Studies, ManohardÄsâs method of translation here approximates a âparaphraseâ. This term is best known from the definition by ManohardÄsâs English contemporary, the literary critic John Dryden. He describes it as one of the three methods of translating, next to metaphrase and imitation (dated 1680; in Baker 1998: 166):
The second way is that of paraphrase, or translation with latitude, where the author is kept in view by the translator, so as never to be lost, but his words are not so strictly followed as his sense; and that too is admitted to be amplified, but not altered.
This definition is in the line of the âsense-for-sense translationâ foregrounded by Jerome (fourth century) to counter the Roman Ciceronian/Horatian tradition of âword-for-word translationâ (Baker 1998: 166). I prefer Drydenâs definition here, because it gives recognition to both the original author and the translator, and because it leaves room for intermittent freedom by the translator. I have mentioned already how ManohardÄs gives credit to Amitagati, by using certain vocabulary that is also in Amitagatiâs version. Furthermore, our Old Hindi author indeed adds to the narrative by Amitagati without altering the story. The verse (v. 941) that refers to the foolâs fatherâs success in the three goals of life (wealth, dharma and love) versus the foolâs own failure because of desire, amplified by the earlier addition of having sex (vv. 931â932), is an example of this.142 Admittedly, when we consider the entire Old Hindi DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä and not only this substory, the âparaphraseâ as it was defined by Dryden applies less consistently to ManohardÄsâs approach to adaptation. The previous sections of this chapter have shown how ManohardÄs altered the nature of the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä by Amitagati in line with the conventions of the vernacular culture of which he was part. As such, the concept of bhÄá¹£Ä, as illustrated by the writing of ManohardÄs, is not easily translated into one term from traditional Translation Studies, since it involves both a conscious transfer from one language into another while considering and even revering the source author, as well as a broader freedom to adapt, omit and add features from or to the source text than seemingly allowed by Dryden.143 This is why appreciating the specific translatory practices of authors like ManohardÄs in their literary contexts and traditions is essential before bringing them into conversation with established Western paradigms in Translation Studies, so as to contribute to the advancement of the field. In the concluding section of this chapter, I revisit my interpretation of the definition and significance of bhÄá¹£Ä.
3 The Audience
Previous sections have already suggested the presence of the audience, but here I want to ask more directly: How did the audience engage with the text, and through which medium? This dual discussion is important because the âmedium,â though it exists independently, is closely connected with the audience and âincludes and constitutes them.â144 To answer this, I now examine the text internally and look at the materiality of the manuscripts in which the text came down to us.
Several textual clues enable us to evaluate how the audience was supposed to engage with the text and what the hypothetical medium was in which this adaptation was transmitted. As in most Indic texts, the praÅasti reflects upon the relationship with the audience:
The DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä that is the essence of intelligence was made vernacular in DhÄmpur for the sake of friendship, for the support of the lonely, not for any glory, not for any pain, nor desire for wealth. [It was made] to my best ability as a paá¹á¸it accumulating rasa (âaesthetic experienceâ), verse by verse. Upon reading or hearing [it], intellect arises and there is prosperity and purity, which bears happiness. This ManohardÄs says, with emotion in his mind, for the fortune of the entire community.145
This verse clearly states that the work was not only to be âread,â but was also meant to be âheard.â It implies the different possible uses of the medium of a manuscript, which we know from other sources as well, namely, that it can be kept and read for personal use, or read out in a community (e.g., in a sermon). The engagement with the text by the audience is quite different in the two instances. Furthermore, hearing a text can imply more than just one mode of engagement: one can listen to a telling in a small circle of people as if to a fairy tale told by a mother to her children; on the other hand, the narrative could also be âstagedâ rather than read out, in a monologue form, as we know from bardic culture. In either mode the mediator will add different sensorial elements to the text, according to his or her personal interpretation, intonation, and facial expressions. Attention to this nuance has been recently highlighted in Orsini and Schofieldâs volume on Texts and Tellings (2015), and my analysis supports this claim. In order to better understand what âlisteningâ in the praÅasti refers to, it is necessary to look at other textual clues in the Old Hindi DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä. I argue that ManohardÄsâs version was at its most effective as a performed telling.
Firstly, let me point out that the textual narration of the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä contains all the elements needed for the audience to be able to follow the plot. This suggests that the prominent mode of engagement is the telling mode. On the other hand, throughout the text the audience is repeatedly and directly requested to listen, because âFor [he] who listens there is wisdom.â This attention is also called upon in the verses that have a repetitive nature, which is typical for songs that consist of stanzas punctuated by refrains. Further song-like features discussed earlier include the poetâs signatures, which not only refer to a lyric dimension, but also, as DâHubert has pointed out, structure the narrative sequence of the poem, thus helping the audience to follow the plot (2015, 432). This is especially relevant in a performance where the plot would be more elusive than when reading a text. In other words, these oral elements that I mention again here are not merely oral (as in âread outâ), but suggest that ManohardÄsâs composition was mediated through performance.146 Such a performance should not be thought of in the way we think of a play, but rather as the voicing of a text with an important role for physical expression. This is how âlisteningâ to the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä goes beyond the âtellingâ mode of engagement, in which the audience is told a story rather than urged to react to it. In the âlisteningâ mode, the narrative acquires certain physiological features, as the audience sees the gestures of the performer and hears his changes in intonation. This involves a different âmental actâ from the audience than does the purely telling mode. Through receiving sensorial impulses, the audience itself reacts more physically to the narrative, the text works not only on the mind but also on the body. In the performed Old Hindi DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä the aural aspects are also different.147 We can imagine how a larger group of Jains would listen together to the narrative. Such a group experience would engender stronger auditory impulses (because, e.g., the atmosphere is louder) and help to harmonize the response of the audience.148 The textual clues I have called âsong-like featuresâ further evidence musical aspects in the aural setting of experiencing the text. Music and melody can function as âemulsifiersâ that allow the audience to take in the message of the narrative, or âcan assist the imagination of the listener.â149 Moreover, I argue that these song-insertions indicate the ways in which the audience engaged interactively with the text. When the performer of the Old Hindi DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä burst into song in those parts of the text that have repetition or use specific meters, the audience would have been able to start singing along, made possible by the ârefrains.â In this way, the audience responds to what they are told, they agree, and make the words of the text their own. This (interactive) participation allows a more immediate kind of immersion, which creates an âintensity of engagementâ that is particularly apt in a religious context (King 2002, 63 in Hutcheon 2005, 51).
The extant manuscripts of the Old Hindi DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä straightforwardly evidence that the narrative circulated in a written form. However, since manuscripts could be used for different purposes, the engagements with that medium are less evident. Fortunately, Indic manuscripts evidence through their material form and structure the function and value they had for their users. Regarding the materiality of the Old Hindi DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä, the number of copies and their widespread availability demonstrate that the text was indeed used.150 The form of these preserved manuscripts can be categorized into those that are of a pothÄ« form and those that are called guá¹akÄ.151 Guá¹akÄ manuscripts are known to have functioned as a type of notebook either for laymen during sermons or for performers.152 They are recognized by their âportraitâ format and their mostly unpolished handwriting. Guá¹akÄs also often contain multiple handwritings in one manuscript (as is the case in one of the Old Hindi DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä manuscripts), which evidences that they were written down by more than one person. Further, guá¹akÄs can combine several texts in one manuscript. As such, KÄslÄ«vÄl lists a guá¹akÄ that contains both BanÄrsÄ«dÄsâs SamayasÄra NÄá¹aka as well as the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä bhÄá¹£Ä by a certain ManoharlÄl, whom I believe to be our ManohardÄs (1962, 170).153
The existence of this type of materiality of ManohardÄsâs text evidences the direct role the Old Hindi DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä played in religious practice. Firstly, since guá¹akÄs are known to be notebooks we can say that the text was written down not just by professional scribes for the purpose of being stored, but also by laymen to help them closely study the text, or by performing laymen so that they could recite the text for the teaching of an audience. Similarly, the relatively unpolished style of writing demonstrates that the importance did not lie in the material, but in the textâs words themselves. The fact that the manuscript contains several different styles of handwriting further evidences how the guá¹akÄ traveled between several individuals. We can imagine how perhaps a paá¹á¸it (a lay specialist of Jainism) would write down one part of the text for a sermon, to then pass it on to another specialist for another sermon.154 This illustrates that the text brought together people, who perhaps discussed it among one another. Thirdly, the collection of the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä bhÄá¹£Ä together with the SamayasÄra NÄá¹aka suggests that the narrative was part of a certain curriculum. Cort writes that the composition by BanÄrsÄ«dÄs âbecame a textbook for seminars in Agraâ and quotes the editor of the 1644 BanÄrsÄ« vilÄs, Jagjivan, who âmentioned a âcircle of scholarsâ (jñÄnÄ«n kÄ« maá¹á¸alÄ«) that engaged in the study (vicÄra) of BanÄrsÄ«dÄsâ textâ (2015, 74).
Another âinkedâ indication of how the audience used or engaged with ManohardÄsâs composition are the markers of âchaptersâ or âpartsâ in the text. In the manuscripts I have collected, five phrases indicate the end of a part. This is the case in all manuscripts, with different variant traditions, and evidences the fact that these sentences were not put there on the decision of one specific copyist. They are mostly âitiâ-sentences and thus they are similar to the way âitiâ can be used in a Sanskrit or Prakrit text.155 Noticeably, they do not appear at every âending,â by which I mean the end of a logical part in the plot such as a substory or a discussion with the Brahmins.156 The four indications given in one exemplary manuscript are as follows:
-
iti ÅrÄ« dharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä-bhÄá¹£Ä manoharadÄsa sÄá¹gÄnerÄ« á¹£aá¹á¸elavÄla ká¹ta prathama adhikÄraḥ saá¹dhi||
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iti saá¹ha kathÄ samÄptaá¹|| chaá¹hÄ« saá¹dhÄ« saá¹pÅ«rá¹a||
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iti ÅrÄ« dharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä-bhÄá¹£Ä manoharadÄsa sÄá¹gÄnerÄ« á¹£aá¹á¸elavÄla ká¹ta caturdaÅamaḥa| pariccheda| 14| samÄptaá¹||
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iti ÅrÄ« dharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä-bhÄá¹£Ä manoharadÄsa sÄá¹gÄnerÄ« á¹£aá¹á¸elavÄla ká¹ta saá¹dhi solahamÄ« samÄptaá¹||157
After the first âchapterâ-ending, we have to wait until the sixth (chaá¹hÄ«) sandhi to get another closing sentence. Until then, it is not clear where a section would be closed, as the verse numbering continues throughout the text. Also noticeable is that the fourteenth part is called a âparicchedaâ whereas the others are called âsandhi.â Neither of the two denominations is specific to Old Hindi literature: the word âparicchedaâ is used by Amitagati, and thus its use may be informed by the fact that the Old Hindi text is an adaptation, whereas the word âsandhiâ is characteristic of Apabhraá¹Åa literature. This inconsistency prompts us to question why these sentences were put there, and who they were composed by. Any answer to this will remain hypothetical, although I believe that these insertions are specific to the handwritten medium of the text. A possible answer may lie in the fact that all manuscripts use the same limited number of this type of sentence. This could mean that all manuscripts were copied from the same older manuscript (possibly with other manuscripts in between), which contained these âiti ÅrÄ« â¦â phrases, but the presence of word and verse variation makes this option less likely. Or perhaps our author ManohardÄs initially composed his text such that closing sentences were only quasi-randomly included?158 The significance of these sentences is that they provide a break in the narrative for the narrator or performer of the text. In comparison, Lutgendorf explains that the RÄmcaritmÄnas is often recited with a fixed number of verses per day (e.g., thirty-six) to make its recitation coverable, and that in the ritualized recitation sampuá¹s (âwrappersâ) are inserted to serve as âan enclosure or frame for each unit of recitation.â159 As such, the insertion of âendingsâ to a part (or sandhi) in the text by ManohardÄs might have served a similar goal of aiding the performer without having been uttered; they would therefore have been specific to the manuscript and not to the text-narrative.
All these elements that constitute the materiality of ManohardÄsâs DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä suggest that the manuscript functioned as an âin-between medium.â It connected people through its production (cf. the guá¹akÄ) and through its practical use, which means that both the text and the medium of the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä bhÄá¹£Ä are to be socially engaged with.
4 Conclusion
The DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä by ManohardÄs has, in the course of this chapter, been shown to be a creative adaptation of the popular narrative of Manovega and Pavanavega. Its richness is telling of the time in which it was composed. ManohardÄsâs seventeenth century was the product of a culmination of processes that originated in the âlongâ fifteenth century, and knew a new and flourishing literary culture.160 This culture was one in which the vernacular language took center stage and therefore engendered many vernacularizations (bhÄá¹£Äs) of texts that were originally part of the standard Sanskrit corpus. The Jains were especially prolific in producing such bhÄá¹£Äs, as this chapter has confirmed. This knowledge provides the first part of the answer to the question of why ManohardÄs would have adapted the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä. His work formed part of the project on the part of intellectual Jains to make important textsâas forms of knowledgeâavailable to a wider audience and to enhance discussions and explorations of them. With this insight also lies the second part of the answer to this questionâof why it was the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä in particular that ManohardÄs chose to adapt. ManohardÄsâs adaptation itself proves the fact that the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä was known and studied, and that it was the version by Amitagati in particular that interested lay Jains at the time.
Connecting several elements from the above discussion, I would like to add that Amitagatiâs version was especially cherished because it was written in Sanskrit, by an author who demonstrated his knowledge both of Jain doctrine and, more importantly, of the principles for Jain lay conduct. The bhÄá¹£Ä project was not just one of translation from a classical language into a vernacular language. Although the text shows a definite respect for the wording and pace of the original, my main argument has been that ManohardÄs has vernacularized the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä in a contextual sense. In my opinion, one of the most characteristic features (if not the most) of ManohardÄsâs adaptation is that it is embedded in a local culture that bears the features of contemporary Digambara movements as well as of typically vernacular literary trends at that time. In comparison with Amitagati, I would say that while the Sanskrit author indeed addresses a lay audience through his telling of popular stories, these tend to endorse a more generic or cosmopolitan pertinency. His choice for Sanskrit endorses such cosmopolitanism and appeals to âhighâ culture. ManohardÄs, on the other hand, makes the stories tangible. He interlaces them with elements that are better known to an audience of the seventeenth century and, at times, makes the narratives truly come alive by triggering peopleâs auditory and visual senses. These tangible elements draw from various localized sources, including religious practice, oral culture, and urban lifestyle, as well as from well-known North Indian literature.
Taking ManohardÄsâs DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä as an example, I would argue that the bhÄá¹£Äs of the early modern period were concerned almost as much with adapting a text to a âvernacular religionâ and âvernacular literary cultureâ as they were with adapting the language. It is for this reason that I suggest translating the word âbhÄá¹£Äâ as âvernacularization.â This sense of vernacularization includes the notion of the âindividualâ or âlocalâ in the strictly sociological sense, but also transcends it. The DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä by ManohardÄs, in its transposition from classical to vernacular, embeds itself within the North Indian Old Hindi literary culture. Together with its language, this had, by the seventeenth century, become a âCultureâ (with a capital âCâ) stretching over a vast area of the northern part of the subcontinent. It is part of a trans-local literature and therefore gives the vernacularized narrative a trans-local appeal. This play between the âgreatâ and the âlittleâ tradition is also expressed in the balancing act ManohardÄs displays between retaining some intellectual elements from Amitagati and inserting elements that belong rather to devotional spheres. The variety of characteristics that come together in the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä bhÄá¹£Ä render an appealing quality to this version by ManohardÄs, so that it was able to speak to many different audiences: it could be studied by those wanting to learn about the narrative as it was made famous in Sanskrit, and could also be indulged in by those seeking religious inspiration in a light-hearted way. These factors composed the strength of the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä vernacularization and led to the textâs being so well circulated and reproduced over northern India.
There is no incontestable term by which to denominate any of the early vernacular languages. I use âOld Hindi,â because this term facilitates literary comparison across language variants, and is preferred among scholars today (besides the term âHindiâ) for the language used at the height of the North Indian vernacular literary culture. ManohardÄsâs language variant can be described more specifically as open-ended BrajbhÄá¹£Ä with Rajasthani influences, since it closely resembles the language described by Snell 1991. It also resembles the language of the Sants as analyzed in Strnadâs grammar based on KabÄ«r vÄnÄ« poems (2013). I prefer to distinguish Old Hindi from Old Gujarati because the latter, especially in its earliest (Jain) form, is much closer to Apabhraá¹Åa or Maru Gurjar.
In his doctoral dissertation on the SÄ«tÄcarit by RÄmcand BÄlak, Plau has described how this text too âslipped into near total obscurityâ (2018, 11). John Cort has suggested that the shift from Old Hindi to Modern Standard Hindi, as well as that from hand-written manuscripts to print culture in the late nineteenth century, is likely to have impacted Jain intellectual culture in an important way, so that many texts would have disappeared from that culture. The âdisruptiveâ impact of the printing press can be seen as exemplified by the fact that the Jains shifted to printing their texts relatively late on, and especially among Digambaras the opposition to printing remained strong for some time (see Cort 2020).
Some of the material in this chapter has been published already in De Jonckheere 2023. This pertains especially to the section on vernacular religiosity.
This is clearly the source KÄslÄ«vÄl as well as MiÅra have used to describe the author (KÄslÄ«vÄl 1950, Introduction, 20; MiÅra 1997, 347).
The definition of gotra as âexogamous clanâ comes from Babb 2004.
The Khaá¹á¸elvÄl caste is a merchant caste (see Ellis 1991). The SonÄ« gotra is described by KÄslÄ«vÄl (1989, 108â109) in his history of the Khaá¹á¸elvÄl community. He mentions that the name SonÄ« originally came from SohanÄ«. SonÄ« (or Sonar: âgoldsmithsâ) is also the name of a Hindu caste (Ellis 1991, 80), and Shalin Jain mentions the SonÄ« gotra as part of the ÅvetÄmbara OsvÄl merchant community (2017, 122). Considering the caste conversions that took place in North India after the twelfth century (see Babb 1996; 2004; see Introduction p. 14, fn. 31), it seems possible that these social groups were linked at some point in the past.
DPM v. 2085: nagara dhÄmpura mÄá¹hi karÄ« bhÄá¹£Ä budhi-sÄru| dharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä mitra artha vijana dhari vÄru| nÄ kachu kÄ«rati na kachu Ärata dhana vaá¹cha na| yathÄá¹ sakati paá¹á¸ita raci padapada rasa saá¹cana| paá¸hai sunai upajai subuddhi hvai kalyÄá¹a Åubha sukha dharaá¹a| manarasi manohara ima kahai sakala saá¹gha maá¹gala karaá¹a|| âThe DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä that is the essence of intelligence was made vernacular in DhÄmpur for the sake of friendship, for the support of the lonely, not for any glory, not for any pain, nor desire for wealth. It was made to my best as a paá¹á¸it accumulating rasa (âaesthetic experienceâ), verse by verse. Upon reading or hearing [it], intellect arises and there is prosperity and purity which bears happiness. This ManohardÄs says, with emotion in his mind, for the fortune of the entire community.â
The date of the text is included in the maá¹ galÄcaraá¹a in DPM v. 8: satraha-saï paá¹cottaraï| pausada sami guruvÄra| Åubha belÄ Åubha graha lagana| kiyau muhÅ«rata sÄra|| âIn 1705 [VS], in the Pauá¹£adha month on Thursday, at an auspicious occasion with an auspicious planetary constellation, at the essence of an auspicious moment [ManohardÄs] created this.â
This SÄlivÄhana may be the Mughal court artist who painted a Vijñapti Patra to invite Vijayasena SÅ«ri to Agra in 1610 (Götler and Mochizuki 2018, 584). Notably, his painting depicts ÅvetÄmbara monks, whereas ManohardÄs follows the Digambara branch of Jainism.
DPM v. 2071â2084.
See also MiÅra (1997, 348). Jain (1964, 222) dates this work to 1728 VS, while MiÅra (1997, 348) dates it to 1729 VS. Several manuscript copies of this text are mentioned in KÄslÄ«vÄl (1949, 72), with different dates of composition, including 1700 VS and 1728 VS.
The two vrat kathÄs are titled Laghu ÄdityavÄra KathÄ and Ravivrata PÅ«jÄ evaá¹ KathÄ.
Moreover, we also know of a Nirañjani author called ManohardÄs, who was mostly active in the second half of the seventeenth century (Williams 2014, 217â218). Since the Jain libraries do not preserve exclusively Jain texts, it is not impossible that some of these texts would have been composed by this ManohardÄs.
It is possible that ManohardÄs himself was a merchant-poet, because he says, prÄ«tama sunahu vicÄra| paá¹dita bhÄ« jÄnai nahÄ«| kÄmÄ«nÄ« carita apÄra| kahai manohara vÄá¹iyÄ|| (DPM v. 1204). This can either mean âListen to this most precious thought. Even the pandits do not know the excessive behavior of a lover, says Manohara to the merchants,â or it can mean â[â¦], says Manohara the merchant.â My interpretation leans toward the first of these possible translations.
Cort notes that it was common practice âfor the sons of merchant families to be given basic education in letters and numbers, as these skills were essential for their trade.â BanÄrsÄ«dÄs continued his education and studied science, poetics, and Jain religion (2015, 75â76). Petit highlights the importance of ÄdhyÄtmika circles (ÅailÄ«) for religious study and cites the Jain author and commentator Ṭoá¸armal, who related that BanÄrsÄ«dÄs âaussi reçu son éducation religieuse dans une des sailÄ« dâAgraâ (2013, 247). This is where these authors acquired their intimacy with Jain Sanskrit and Prakrit literary heritage (Petit 2013, 247). However, according to Cort, having the knowledge necessary to recite Prakrit works did not mean that they were also versed in Prakrit grammar or could understand Prakrit texts without Sanskrit paraphrasing (chÄyÄ) (2015, 76, fn. 52).
DPM v. 2082a: rÄvata sÄlivÄhana Ägare ko buddhivaá¹ta hiradai sarala tina jñÄna-rasa pÄ«yo hai| âThe wise RÄvata SÄlivÄhana of Agra with his simple heart has drunk its (the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Äâs) juice of knowledge.â
Taken from Cort 2015, 72â73.
The Digambara Terahpanth emerged in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in North India âin protest against the lax and ostentatious conduct of contemporary orange-clad âBÄ«sa PanthÄ«â ascetics [bhaá¹á¹Ärakas]â (Flügel 2006a, 339). Neither the precise origin of the TerahpanthÄ«s nor the history and organization of its ascetics is known any longer, but it seems that this Digambara branch was initiated by the lay community (Flügel 2006a, 339). Probably, the initially distinct adhyÄtma movement in Agra and the more radically anti-bhaá¹á¹Äraka Terahpanth movement around Jaipur became indistinguishable âwith the waning of the influence of the Adhyatma movement in the eighteenth century and the institutional consolidation of the Terah Panth through the construction of numerous temples in North Indiaâ (Flügel 2006a, 340).
See ÅÄstri 1985, 537.
See Cort 2002b; Flügel 2006a; Plau 2018.
See Cort 2002b.
BakhatrÄm Åah was a BÄ«sapanth author critical of the adhyÄtma and Terahpanth movements (see Cort 2002b, 50).
For a discussion on how BanÄrsÄ«dÄsâs SamayasÄra NÄá¹aka is a translation of Kundakundaâs text, see Cort (2015, 82â83).
The philosophy presented in Kundakundaâs SamayasÄra initially led BanÄrsÄ«dÄs to denounce all ritual culture. However, after a series of lectures by a religious scholar named RÅ«pacand on the guá¹asthÄnas in Nemicandraâs Gommaá¹asÄra he changed his attitude, perceiving ritual as belonging to one of the levels of spiritual purity (see Petit 2014, 390; 2013,131â135).
DPM v. 2: arihaá¹ta-deva svarÅ«pa| jo nara jÄnai mana dharai| so nara mukti anÅ«pa| varai vega-paá¹á¸ita kahai||
Other manuscripts of the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä (BORI 616 (1875â1876) and ms. or. fol. 2309 from the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin) have: jo nara jÄni ru mana dharai||
In Old Hindi the similarity is perhaps clearer. ManohardÄs writes jo nara jÄnai mana dharai, where BanÄrsÄ«dÄs writes jo jÄnai so jaina.
DPM v. 1: praá¹amu arihaá¹ta-deva| guru nirgrantha dayÄ dharma| bhava dadhi tÄraá¹a eva| avara sakala mithyÄta bhaá¹i||
Another related interpretation would be that âsvarÅ«paâ is used in a way that is common in Sanskrit literature when occurring at the end of a compound, namely meaning âin person.â As such, a translation would be âthe arhat, a god in person.â
This does not exclude the fact that within both ÅvetÄmbara and Digambara Jainism, worship of Jina icons was (and is) a common practice (see Cort 2002b; 2010). Arguments for the use of Jina icons are usually âpredicated upon a natural and psychological necessity of images and forms: human perception operates by means of external imagesâ (Cort 2010, 254). Thus, the icons are seen as means to advance toward the ideal of a pure soul.
The rejection of worshipping the embodied aspect of a Jina image is also at the heart of the ÅvetÄmbara SthÄnakvÄsi critique of Jina icons tout court. They see it as âillogical to worship (or otherwise use) inert matter in order to attain a condition of pure spiritâ (Cort 2010, 255).
See also ManohardÄsâs use of the term anubhava (âinner experience of the self through insightâ) on p. 103.
I thank John Cort for his help in pointing out that this phrase indeed suggests a link to the âmysticalâ Digambara tradition.
For further reading on the meaning of rahasya see Jain 1975.
See Petit 2014.
See Bangha and Fynes 2013 and Cort 2013a, 2013b and 2019.
See Plau 2018; 2019a.
See Clines 2018; 2019.
This in contrast to the idea that Old Hindi is typically linked to bhakti poetry (see also Busch 2011a; Plau 2019a).
This has to do with the continuities Bangha sees with Apabhraá¹Åa writing (2018, 10).
See also Plau 2019a, 267â268.
Ollett discusses the bifurcation between Jain literature and non-Jain, mainstream literature. He sees the production of the âdiscursive phenomenonâ of Prakrit as emerging from the cooperation between the two camps (2017, 82). However, since those who determined the literary canon in premodern India saw Jain literature as âJain first and literature secondâ (2017, 74), Ollett concludes that âwhen Jains wrote literature in Prakrit, they were not participating in a âshadowâ literary culture entirely cut off from the mainstream, but neither were they recognized as full-fledged participants in the mainstream by the latterâs own voicesâ (2017, 74).
Considering Old Hindi literature, we could say that the different communities of Old Hindi composition (including Jains, Sants, Ká¹á¹£á¹a bhaktas, rÄ«ti, etc.) all cooperated in establishing a vernacular literary culture, but that none of them fully epitomized the hybridized literary ideal.
This is what Plau (2019a) has done for the SÄ«tÄcarit.
Within the manuscripts I was able to collect, I would suggest discerning (at least) two copying traditions. All manuscripts from BORI have the same variants, in contrast to the manuscripts from PÄá¹an and from Berlin, which are similar to each other.
See Rocher 1980, 52 for the Manusmá¹ti, see McBride 2006 on VajrayÄna Buddhism.
See Jaini 1979, 247; Dundas 2002, 164.
See Williams 1963, 69, 131â132, 223.
This I deduce from the fact that the text addresses only laymen in its maá¹ galÄcaraá¹a and praÅasti, and secondly because of the material evidence (see Introduction).
For example, verse 1210 of DPM uses it in the sentence: âHaving listened to the words of the god with mind, speech, and body.â
To give a few examples:
DPM v. 169: mana vaca kÄyÄ Åuddha kari| jina vaca hiradai dhÄra| dayÄ vrata pÄlana cahai| tau etÄ« bÄta nivÄri||
DPM v. 332: tÄ bhaá¹a ko hÅ«á¹ putra hÅ«á¹| jÄnahu mana vaca kÄya| tiá¹a lÄkaá¸Ä« veca kari| udara bharai duá¹£a pÄï||
DPM v. 1210: deva vacana suá¹i mana vaca kÄya| liyo pavana surapati bulÄya||
See Cort (2013a, 267) on DyÄnatrÄy, and KÄslÄ«vÄl (1973, 198, 253) on DaulatrÄm.
Note that both DyÄnatrÄy and DaulatrÄm KÄslÄ«vÄl are younger than ManohardÄs, so that we cannot speak of their having a direct influence on ManohardÄs.
For example, as mana vaca bhÄsa.
See Busch 2011a; Williams 2014; Plau 2018.
See Pauwels 2018 and Bangha 2018.
Ollett explains this difference as being based on a difference in their relationship to Prakrit: âSouthern languages like Kannada and Telugu represented themselves in place of Prakrit ⦠Northern languages, by contrast, represented themselves as largely continuous with Apabhramshaâ (2017, 16; see also pages 175â178).
Pollock, basing himself on the example of Kannada literature, sees vernacularization mainly as a culturalâpolitical orientation and mostly ignores religion.
Some poets did acquire canonization more quickly (e.g., the poetry of Hit HarivamÅ) or composed texts that circulated on paper from their conception (e.g., TulsidÄsâs RÄmcaritmÄnas, in the second half of the sixteenth century).
The Jains were also major âliterizersâ as they knew a long tradition of manuscript copying and were the first, together with the Buddhists, to establish manuscript libraries. In these libraries we can see an âexplosionâ of manuscript production around the fourteenthâfifteenth centuries with manuscripts on paper (see, e.g., Johnson 1993; Cort 1995a; Wujastyk 2014). The role their manuscript production may have played in the process of vernacularization is yet to be studied.
On the function and emic interpretation of Jain scriptural manuscripts within a performative context see Cort 1992.
Williams 2014 (183â190) studied variated forms of materialized texts that would help devotees to remember and perform the devotional songs.
See Williams 2014, 200â213.
In fact, Bangha and Fynes have noted that the writings of the ÅvetÄmbara author Änandghan show that influences between the Jain and the Nirguá¹ Sant traditions indeed occurred (see 2013, Introduction).
Pollock (2006, 20â21) and Busch (2011b, 212â215) both see this as a defining characteristic of vernacularization.
Among the Nirguá¹ Sants, Williams (2014, 117) mentions NandadÄs. John Cort explains similar interests in Jain writing (2015, 96).
See De Clercq 2015 on Raïdhū.
See Ollett (2017, 133â135) on the position of Apabhraá¹Åa in the language order of âclassical India.â He sees Apabhraá¹Åa as an iteration of Prakrit as a regional language, âconfigured as the furthest stop away from the starting point [of iteration] that is Sanskritâ (2017, 134).
See Ollett 2017, Orsini 2012, and Orsini and Schofield 2015 for further discussion on multilingualism.
The compound sahasa-ká¹ta, here translated as âthousand times,â could also refer to Sanskrit. There are some uses of the word sahasaká¹ta in close proximity to praká¹ta that would suggest this. The praÅasti of the vernacular PravacanasÄra by HemrÄj GodÄ«kÄ is an example (see KÄsliwÄl 1990, 105). This would mean, however, that ManohardÄs repeats the language of Amitagatiâs text.
DPM vv. 2069â2070: muni amitagati jÄni| sahasa-ká¹ta pÅ«rava kahÄ«| yÄ me buddhi pramÄá¹a| bhÄá¹£Ä kÄ«nÄ« jorikai|| vikramarÄjÄ kuá¹ bhae| sÄta adhika suhajÄr| varaá¹£a tavai yaha saá¹ská¹ta| bhaÄ« kathÄ ÅubhasÄra||
See McGregor 1993.
Ollett has done a thorough analysis of how the dichotomy SanskritâPrakrit(s) came to (partly) dominate premodern thinking (2017). Especially his Chapter Five develops the language schema of literature to include besides Sanskrit and Prakrit also other bhÄá¹£Äs based on classical literary treatises.
I would even hypothesize how we may see a similar connation in PÄá¹iniâs use of âbhÄá¹£Äâ (âlanguageâ). He distinguishes it from âchandasâ (Vedic verse), to contrast the sacred language (chandas) with the non-sacred language of scholastics (bhÄá¹£Ä). Though PÄá¹ini uses the word âbhÄá¹£Äâ to refer to Sanskrit, we can see a parallel, where Sanskrit would have acquired the status of âclassicalâ or âhighâ culture and âbhÄá¹£Äâ would have kept its connotation of the opposite.
Orsini speaks of âbhÄá¹£Äâ (âvernacular languageâ), at least until the sixteenth century, as a continuum of varieties (including a.o. AvadhÄ«, BrajbhÄá¹£Ä, Bhojpuri, and Khaá¹Ä« BolÄ«) that could be understood over the whole of North India (2012, 228â229).
A grammatical analysis of ManohardÄsâs words does not exclude either translation. The female verbal form âkÄ«nÄ«â can either accord with âbhÄá¹£Äâ (as a grammatical subject), or with an implied dharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä from the previous verse, or kathÄ in this verse (as a grammatical subject).
As such, âbhÄá¹£Äâ could be used as an indigenous concept, close to âtranslation,â to cover a specific aspect of the idea of adaptation as I am using it here.
Note that NandadÄs was a Vaiá¹£á¹ava poet.
The use of the word âbÄlakaâ is reminiscent of the genre of vernacular commentarial translations called bÄlÄvabodha or bÄlabodha (âInstructions for the Unletteredâ) (see Cort 2015, 90). See also p. 98 of this book.
This is the Vaiá¹£á¹ava practice of applying twelve (dvÄdaÅa) marks (tilakas) on the body (see Narayan 2018).
Guggul refers to the gum resin of the Commiphora wightii tree, which is burned for its smoke (see Pennacchio et al. 2010, 74).
This is a paraphrase of DPM vv. 271â279 (See De Jonckheere 2023, 195 fn. 30).
DPA 3.23â32; DPM vv. 160â169.
Hawley (2011) has written an insightful article on the connection (or relative disconnection) between the four sampradÄyas of North Indian Vaiá¹£á¹avism and the earlier South Indian sampradÄyas.
See Jain 1972, 405â421; see also Al-Biruniâs History of India, e.g. (Chapter Sixty-Six).
See Delmonico 2007, 549â575.
I thank James Mallinson for informing me about tilakas via email (November 7, 2019).
I use the term âhighâ culture or tradition without any evaluative connotation. The binary âhighâ and âvernacularâ serves the analytical purpose of distinguishing between the two adaptations while referring to well-used terms in religious and cultural studies.
This definition is based on Primiano 1995.
Note that, as a notion, vernacular religion does not exclude all that belongs to normative religion, nor the other way around. The concept of vernacular religion can even highlight creative engagements with higher forms of religiosity.
For a further discussion on the concepts of âvernacular religionâ in contrast to âfolkâ or âpopular religion,â see Bowman and Valk (2012).
I want to stress here again that I see this vernacular imagination of religion as closely tied with the imagination and conventions of vernacular literature.
Conversely, we could denote the form of religiosity reflected in Amitagatiâs text as âscholasticâ Hinduism, since it focuses on the Brahmins and their authoritative knowledge of the ÅÄstras and PurÄá¹as.
DPH 1.18.
See Robertson 1991.
Although ManohardÄsâs âglobeâ was much smaller than is todayâs, my argument is similar to what Pollock (2013) has argued for the âSanskrit cosmopolis,â that processes of transcultural belonging show resemblances to contemporary globalization (see Pollock 2006, 10â19).
This reference to an inner experience of insight (anubhava) is characteristic of adhyÄtma texts (see Parson 2019; cf. p. 85).
DPM vv. 1858â1863 (See De Jonckheere 2023, 197 fn. 35). This is where Amitagati has his seventeenth pariccheda.
The term ânirañjanaâ (âspotlessâ) is used to describe the soul in its pure state in the Jain tradition. The obtaining of this pure soul is central in the traditions following Kundakunda. In the ParamÄtmaprakÄÅa by YogÄ«ndu (eighth century) this pure soul is described in a way that is very similar to descriptions in nirguá¹ bhakti texts, as something supreme but inexpressible.
The terms ânirañjana,â âsant,â and âsÄdhâ commonly occur in texts by, for example, the DÄdÅ« Panth and the NirañjanÄ«s, two sects that were prolific in seventeenth-century Rajasthan (see the studies by Monika Thiel-Horstmann 1983; Tyler Williams 2014).
See Williams 2014, 139.
Mallinsonâs (2020) discussion of depictions of yogis in Mughal paintings is insightful in assessing popular images of yogic ascetics in early modern India.
DPm v. 725: vinÄ pariá¹£a phala putra koá¹ kyo kari dÄ«no jÄi| [â¦].
Compare DPa 7.54: avicÄrya phalaá¹ dattaá¹ hÄ kiá¹ durmedhasÄ mayÄ| yadi dattaá¹ kutaÅ chinnaÅ cÅ«to roga-niṣūdakaḥ|| âAah why was the fruit unreflectingly given by me, a fool! (And) if it was given, why was the mango tree that removes illnesses, cut down [on my order]?â
DPm v. 728: sÄ«ya laá¹kapati harÄ« rÄma laká¹£maá¹a dukkha pÄya| chapaá¹a koá¹i ná¹pa Ä«sa ná¹pati vala jÄcani Äyo| dekhi tilottama brahma tÄsoá¹ ragi rÄcyo| tali upari de hÄtha gauri Ägai hara nÄcyo| yaha jÄá¹i garava ko mati karo ghaá¹Ä« bÄta koá¹ kahai ava| mana rahasi manohara ima kahai| hoá¹ahÄra vasi khalaka sava||
Cf. DPa 7.57.
I refer to the term ârÄgaâ here, because one of the main goals in all of the substories and subhÄá¹£itÄs (or aphorisms) of the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä is to prove the fault in having passions, in the sense of the Jain conviction of vairÄgya.
The most common term found to refer to Naá¹arÄjaâs dance is âtÄá¹á¸avaâ, understood as a vehement dance. Its opposite in contempary dance theory is lÄsya, associated with delicate movements. Ganser explores the distinction of tÄá¹á¸ava and lÄsya, alternatively called âsukumÄraâ in the NÄá¹yaÅÄstra, and their gendered qualities in the NÄá¹yaÅÄstra and AbhinavabhÄrati (2022, Chapter 2).
The tÄá¹á¸ava dance is commonly divided into seven types in dance theory as well as in contemporary iconographic treatises. It is unclear when this categorisation originated. Zvelebil mentions the authoritative 19th-century ÅrÄ«tattvanidhi as mentioning such categorisation (1985, 33).
See Doniger 1980, 131â132. She refers to the ÅivapurÄá¹a 2.3.30 vv. 25â54 and BrahmavaivartapurÄá¹a 4.40 vv. 70â111.
Qvarnström 2015, 53.
DPA 18.72.
These are either vegetable sellers, or people from Kacch.
These are probably the Dumnas or Doms (see Parry 2004, 71).
The JÄá¹s are a community in northwest India.
DPM v. 1933â1934: [â¦] kalÄ«kÄla maiá¹ mithyÄ nÄhi||
Åuddha ÄcÄra pÄlai nahÄ«| brÄhmaá¹a vikala viveka| abae jina doṣī bhaye| chÄri dharama kÄ« á¹eka||
dhÄ«vara dhobÄ« caá¹á¸Äla kÄchÄ« kasÄÄ« kalÄla gaá¹á¹hÄ« chorÄ hoá¹hi phuni hoi vaá¹apÄra jÅ«|
tÄÄ« [nÄÄ«] telÄ« teravÄ taá¹bolÄ« tagÄtÄá¹ta gari bhÄá¹a jÄá¹a á¹Äá¹a mara cÅ«harÄ camÄra jÅ«|
vaá¹saphorÄ vo jÄgara á¹£aá¹Ä«ka musalamÄna mÄá¹sa bhaṣī mada pÄnÄ« dhuniyÄ sunÄra jÅ« [â¦]
Note that the last caste mentioned by ManohardÄs, the goldsmiths (sunÄr or sonÄr), is a merchant caste that seems not to fit in this list of low castes. A variant name of this caste is sonÄ«, which is the name of the gotra to which ManohardÄs himself belonged. The inclusion of the sunÄrs is likely a quip and a critique on his own relations.
In his overview of ontologies and grammars of alterity applied to these social and religious groups, Jon Keune illustrates well the complexity of their representations in medieval Indic literature (2020, 105â110). Muslims are not seen exclusively as âpolitical dominatorsâ but can also be praiseworthy upholders of dharma (Keune 2020, 106). Untouchables and low castes do not occur in literature only as dangerous and polluting but are also found in the motif of the âdivine Untouchableâ (Keune 2020, 108). For both social groups most studies explain their representations within the framework of vará¹ÄÅrama dharma. See also Keune 2016.
The concept âfuzzyâ was coined by Kaviraj 1992, and explained in Keune (2020, 105) referring to Foster 2016.
The preceding words declare explicitly: âThe fourth age will now be describedâ (cauthe kÄla jina kahai baá¹£Äni).
Next to these longer passages that depict the religious other, at some points in the text ManohardÄs also alludes to shorter evaluations of religious practices. I mention as an example the story of Vakra and Skanda, where a plea for dÄna (âdonationâ) is put into the mouth of Vakraâs son, who begs his father to donate his money to a Brahmin so that the father will gain religious merit before dying. With this ironic plea ManohardÄs criticizes the giving of dÄna for false reasons (DPM v. 523â524).
I refer the reader to the Appendix.
BhÄ«msen is one of the PÄá¹á¸ava brothers, known for his enormous appetite.
DPM v. 848â860:
jyauá¹ dÅ«á¸hai saba á¹haura| vaá¹iyÄ sama á¹haga ko nahÄ«| mero kÄ«yo bhaura| hve vo juÄ de kÄá¹ha ko||
vÄá¹yo tajai na vaá¹iyÄ| mai kachu mithyÄ nÄhÄ«| ghÄlyo ghÄva pichÄá¹i| vÄá¹yo saravasa lÅ«á¹ikai||
jÄnoá¹ mana vaca kÄya| yÄ me dhoá¹£o kachu nahÄ«| tÄkÄ« mÅ«á¹á¸ho mÄya| vÄá¹yo ko mÄnaiá¹ kahyau||
[dohÄ] gupati dei to sava gilai| parataṣī saá¹so eha| apano ghaá¹a to para adhika| tina so kiso saneha||
[caupaï] Ädi namra pramudita viradhi| kaá¹hina kÄma-ká¹ti Äni| kÄma sarai phuni namna hvai| vaá¹iyÄ piÅuna samÄna||
thÄna Äpa naiá¹ siá¹gha samÄna| jaá¹buka sama paradeÅa vaá¹£Äá¹a| maithuá¹a samai ye svÄna samÄna| raá¹i má¹ga sama mÄnoá¹ paravÄna||
bagulÄ kÄ« pari mauna ju karai| bhÄ«masena sama bhoja na dharai| vasana saspajoá¹ bahu viddhi gahai| kapi samÄna thÄnai nahi rahai||
Äpa liá¹£ai Äá¹£ara kÄ« pÄá¹ti| hÄ«á¹ga miraca jÄ«ro sava bhÄá¹ti| phuni kari tÄhi vacÄvo koï| haga mara jara vÄá¹ce yo loï||
kÅ«á¸a duá¹£á¹a nahÄ« dayÄla gÄra| deá¹£ata lÅ«á¹ai sava saá¹sÄra| kÄma paá¸yÄ soá¹ vinau karei| sarai kÄma tava vÄá¹Ä« dei||
[dohÄ] vÄá¹a pÄsoá¹ guá¹a jo karai| kachu nahi dÄ«sai miá¹á¹ha| agani lagai jima roma koá¹| so nahÄ« koilÄ dÄ«á¹ha||
vaá¹iyÄ sama duá¹ha ko nahÄ«| karai mila dhana nÄá¹Åa| tÄtai vara-veÅÄ bhalÄ«| paragaá¹a vecai mÄá¹sa||
[soraá¹hÄ] sava sai vuro sunÄra| tÄhu ko guru vaá¹iyo| dharamavaá¹ta guá¹asÄra| sahÄ« sarÄvaga jÄá¹iyo||
isa prakÄra so kÄ agani| rajaka dajyo sava gÄta| lobha á¹hagÄvai catura nara| kahÄ rajaka kÄ« vÄta||
A well-known example is the story of CÄrudatta in the Vasudevahiá¹á¸i. In the vernacular, Jain authors developed independent works on merchants. See, for example, Samayasundaraâs (sixteenth- to seventeenth-century) Dhanadatta Åreá¹£á¹hÄ« CaupaÄ« (also known as VyavahÄraÅuddhi CaupaÄ«) (in NÄhaá¹Ä 1961, 103â119).
Lawrence Babb (2002) explains in detail how Rajasthani trading-castes, such as that of the KhandelvÄls to which ManohardÄs belonged, emphasized non-violence in the construction of their identity. This identity existed across religious differences (Jains and Hindus). More recently, Divya Cherian (2023) has explored the elevation of a virtuous merchant ethics in order to support trading castesâ elite identity. She focuses on Hindu identity, but also includes comparisons with Jain merchant communities in northern India. For an elaboration on the importance of piety, restraint and religious charity among early modern Jain merchants, see Dundas 2002, 196â198.
The fact that ManohardÄs is able to criticize some of his sponsors and does not seem fearful to lose their financial support should be seen in this context. In fact, in his praÅasti, besides criticizing some merchants, ManohardÄs also praises merchants who donate to the best of their ability (tahÄá¹ vasai dhanapati bahu loga ⦠vitasÄru Åubha dÄna karÄi, DPM vv. 2073â2074) and give to the poor and wretched (dÄtÄ dÄ«na dayÄla, DPM v. 2075).
This is North Bengal (Callewaert 2009, 544).
These two regions represent the regions of present-day Turkey and Arabia. The name of RÅ«ma comes from the city of Rome, but actually refers to the Eastern Roman Empire (with Constantinople as its capital), and SÄma (also SyÄma) refers to the region of Syria (Hindi ÅabdasÄgara 1965â1975).
This is a small town in Punjab, said to be the place were Akbar was enthroned in 1556 (Von Garbe 2014 (1909), 68).
DPM v. 1565: pÅ«rava sakala deá¹£i paá¹anÄ vihÄra Ädi sakala vaá¹gÄle deá¹£i deá¹£yo phuni gora hÅ«|
rÅ«ma syÄma kÄvila á¹£aá¹dhÄra á¹£urÄsÄna deá¹£i sakala pachÄha deá¹£i deṣī kalÄnaura hÅ«|
pahÄá¸a kÄ« talÄ« Ädi gaá¹gÄ pÄra sava deá¹£i aura hÅ« sakala phiri deá¹£i vaura á¹haura hÅ«|
daká¹£iá¹a sarava gujarÄta vÄ«jÄpura deá¹£yo nalavÄra koÅ« tairÄ« sama aura hÅ«||
JÄyasÄ« refers here to the purÄá¹ic cosmology of seven continents (with seven seas), each of which is divided into nine parts (see Shireff 1944, 2, fn. 8 and 9, fn. 30). It is interesting to see how JÄyasÄ« combines a Mughal geography with purÄá¹ic cosmology, reflecting, as such, his composite cultural environment (see de Bruijn 2012, 101â148). ManohardÄsâs use of a Mughal geography within his purÄá¹ic-inspired narrative can be read along similar lines (cf. p. 113).
I would also like to refer to Truschkeâs discussion of the Ká¹pÄrasakoÅa (âTreasury of Compassionâ) by the Kharatara Gaccha monk ÅÄnticandra (2016, 74â81). This encomium for Akbar depicts the Mughal ancestral lands (Kabul and Khurasan) as lying outside of the Indian Mughal rule of Akbar. Truschke reads in ÅÄnticandraâs composition a construction of the relationship between Jain political motives and Mughal rule (2016, 74). Though it is interesting to consider how Jains position themselves within a Mughal world in political terms, I prefer to read ManohardÄsâs geographical depiction as a form of intertextuality.
The Khaljis were of Turkish origin and would have come from Khurasan.
As a reference, Moosvi has calculated on the base of her study of Abuâl Fazlâs ÄâÄ«n-i AkbarÄ« (1595) that a horseman of Indian origin in the imperial administration received a salary of twenty rupees a month (2015, 218).
The rupee became the main coin under the Mughals in the sixteenth century (Singh 2013, 5; Moosvi 2015, 362), although the rÅ«paka had already appeared as a silver coin under the ParamÄra dynasty (Jain 1972, 506). At the time of Amitagati the most used coin was the dramma and, secondly, the dinÄra. Amitagati refers (as does Hariá¹£eá¹a) to the dinÄra (DPA 8.39). It is interesting to note that in that same story ManohardÄs also uses the dinÄra coin.
DPM v. 165: aise duá¹£á¹a saá¹sÄra ko| mati ko karu visÄsa| jo sukha cÄho mukti ko| kahai manoharadÄsa||
DPM v. 503. nÄrÄ« nÄgina sÄriṣī| mati ko karahu visÄsa| jiyo cÄhai ko ika dina| kahai manoharadÄsa||
DPM v. 1265: sukha sobhÄ ko nÄsa| karai pÄpa lÄgyo huto| kahai manoharadÄsa| isa prakÄra sira kara lagyo||
Hawley writes âOnly rarely does a verb of âauthoringâ appear in connection with the poetâs name. Among the poets we have been considering, it is only KabÄ«r who gives such a verb with any frequencyâ (1988, 277). I would like to point out, as a way of nuancing this, that we do find the combination of an authorâs name with a form of kahâ excessively in HaridÄsâs Aá¹£á¹ÄdaÅa SiddhÄnta (see Rosenstein 1997), frequently in MÄ«rÄbÄÄ«âs PadÄvalÄ« (see Snell 1991), and in DÄdÅ«âs Padas and SÄkhÄ«s (see Thiel-Horstmann 1983).
The âresonanceâ becomes even more pertinent when we remind ourselves of the fact that ManohardÄs has translated (or at least closely paraphrased) the words by Amitagati. This makes the question of authorship as irrelevant (at least if we seek for the historical author) as in the devotional poems analyzed by Hawley (1988).
See Orsini 2015; 2017.
See Lutgendorf 1991, Bangha 2014, and Clines 2018 respectively.
DPM v. 200â208. The manuscript Arrah G-24 (and BORI 616) use the word âlobhÄ«â; the manuscript from the State Library in Berlin renders âmithyÄâ instead.
His character is described in the preceding lines.
I use âvocalizedâ because no manuscript attests to ragas, as has been the case for other similar texts (e.g., the SÄ«tÄcarit by RÄmcand BÄlak, see Plau 2019b; or the PÄrÅvapurÄá¹a by BhÅ«dhardÄs, see Cort 2009b). However, the meter and rhyme of ManohardÄsâs verses blur the boundary between song and poem; the only missing parameter is melody.
DPM v. 1645: lobha vaá¹dhyo gajarÄja lobha phuni keÅari pakaryo| lobha bhramara duḥkha sahai lobha juá¹£a dhÄ« varaja karyau| lobha rÄma dukha sahyo kanaka má¹ga pÄchai dhÄyo| lobha viá¹á¹avyo kÄnha ná¹pati valajÄ cana Äyo| yo lobha rÄvarÄá¹a gaye| lobha daÅanana á¹£aá¹á¸iyo| mati karo lobha manohara kahai| lobha sakala jaga á¸aá¸iyo||
DPM v. 688: kathÄ Äá¹va kÄ« loi| kahau sunÄ« mai prema jyoá¹| tÄhi sunata vudha hoÄ«| tÄtai sunÄ«yo kÄna de||
DPA 7.28: viparÄ«tÄÅayo ʾvÄci bhavatÄá¹ pittadÅ«á¹£itaḥ| adhunÄ bhaá¹yate cÅ«taḥ sÄvadhÄnair niÅamyatÄm||
See, e.g., Busch 2015.
The kathÄ acquired its distinct identity by the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (see Orsini 2015).
For example, the kuá¹á¸aliya. Other heretofore unmentioned meters are the frequent savaÄ«yÄ and the less frequent aá¸illa, the á¹£aá¹apada, the kavitta, the jÄti chand, and the doharÄ. For an overview of Old Hindi meters see Nagasaki (2012).
With literal translation I mean the transfer of written text from one language into another, with a focus on equivalence on both the vocabulary and syntactical level. This is how âtranslationâ is conventionally understood today. See Shuttleworth and Cowie (1997, 181) for a discussion of different contemporary definitions of âtranslationâ.
nabhasvat-traya refers to the three types of atmospheric layers (vÄta-valaya) in Jain cosmology, namely ghanodadhi (âhumidâ), ghana (âthickâ) and tanu (âthickâ) (see Varni 2002, 532; Jaini 1948, 11).
An alternative translation for bÄlaka subuddhi hetu is âfor the sake of the ignorant and the wiseâ.
These grammatical terms are used to refer to direct borrowings from Sanskrit (tatsama), to words that evolved from Sanskrit (tadbhava) and to words that are supposed to have an origin other than Sanskrit (deÅÄ«).
An example in this verse is the word payodha, which does not even occur in Callewaertâs Dictionary of Bhakti.
Because the relation between the cosmic elements and King JitaÅatru is different in the Old Hindi verse from the Sanskrit verse, the translation of this verse is not âperfectâ.
This definition of âliteral translationâ is different from the understanding by Cicero, Horace, and John Dryden, that has a longer tradition and sees âliteral translationâ as word-by-word rendering that does not take into account the grammatical structure of the target language (Baker 1998, 125).
Modern scholars of Translation Studies would call this a âparticularizing translationâ (see Shuttleworth and Cowie 1997, 123).
DPA 9.43â49:
nigadyeti nijÄá¹ vÄrtÄá¹ dvitÄ«ye virate sati| tá¹tÄ«yo bÄliÅo diá¹£á¹yÄ bhÄá¹£ituá¹ tÄá¹ pracakrame||
svakÄ«yam adhunÄ paurÄ mÅ«rkhatvaá¹ kathayÄmi vaḥ| sÄvadhÄnaá¹ manaḥ ká¹tvÄ yuá¹£mÄbhir avadhÄryatÄm||
ekadÄ ÅvÄÅuraá¹ gatvÄ mayÄnÄ«tÄ manaḥpriyÄ| ajalpantÄ« niÅi proktÄ ÅayanÄ«yam upeyuṣī||
yo jalpatyÄvayoḥ pÅ«rvaá¹ hÄryante tena niÅcitam| ká¹Åodari daÅÄpÅ«pÄḥ sarpir-guá¸a-viloá¸itÄḥ||
tato vallabhayÄ proktam evam astu visaá¹Åayam| kulÄ«nÄbhir vaco bhartur na kvÄpi pratikÅ«lyate||
Ävayoḥ sthitayor evaá¹ pratijÃ±Ä rÅ«á¸hayoḥ satoḥ| praviÅya sakalaá¹ dravyaá¹ caureá¹ÄhÄri mandiram||
na tena kiá¹cana tyaktaá¹ gá¹há¹atÄ draviá¹aá¹ gá¹he| chidre hi jÄra-caurÄá¹Äá¹ jÄyate prabhaviá¹£á¹utÄ||
priyÄyÄḥ kraá¹£á¹um Ärabdhe stenena paridhÄnake| jalpitaá¹ re durÄcÄra tvaá¹ kim adyÄpy upeká¹£ase||
Äká¹á¹£á¹e me ântarÄ«ye âpi tvaá¹ jÄ«vasi kathaá¹ Åaá¹ha| jÄ«vitavyaá¹ kulÄ«nÄnÄá¹ bhÄryÄ-paribhavÄvadhi||
tadÄ«yaá¹ vacanaá¹ ÅrutvÄ vihasya bhaá¹itaá¹ mayÄ| hÄritaá¹ hÄritaá¹ kÄnte prathamaá¹ bhÄá¹£itaá¹ tvayÄ||
guá¸ena sarpiá¹£Ä miÅrÄḥ pratijñÄtÄḥ svayaá¹ tvayÄ| paá¹ kajÄká¹£i daÅÄpÅ«pÄ dÄ«yatÄá¹ mama sÄá¹pratam||
idaá¹ paÅyata mÅ«rkhatvaá¹ madÄ«yaá¹ yena hÄritam| sarvaá¹ pÅ«rvÄrjitaá¹ dravyaá¹ durÄpaá¹ dharma-Åarmadam||
tadÄ boá¸am iti khyÄtaá¹ mama nÄma janaiḥ ká¹tam| viá¸ambanÄá¹ na kÄm eti prÄá¹Ä« mithyÄbhimÄnataḥ||
DPM v. 930â942:
tritÄ«ya mÅ«rakha bole eva| vinatÄ« eka suno ho deva| mujha samÄna mÅ«rakha nahi koi| mere kÄma sunau tuma loi||
gayo sÄsurai ekadÄ| prÄá¹a piyÄrÄ« laina| jÄi triyÄ niÅi bhogavÄ«| mahÄ madana sukha daina||
bahuta dinau ke mile taiá¹| kahÄ« paraspara bÄta| rasakÄrÄ« sukha vardhinÄ«| tÄtai upajai dhÄta||
dÅ« bolyo bÄteá¹ karata| doi pahara ko khana hÅ«vÄ| pahilai bolai kÄminÄ«| hÄrai sodaÅa hÄ« puvÄ||
ghá¹ta gula lolita tÄjÄ kiyÄ| hÄrai so de á¸hÄ«la na triyÄ| yahai hoha aho bharatÄra| ÅÄ«lavaá¹ta nahi lopai kÄra||
aÅubha yoga ika kÄraá¹a bhayo| tihi thÄnaka taskara ika á¹hayo| tihÄ« pÄpÄ« sagalau dhana liyo| dono madhi koi na boliyo||
sava dhana lÄ«yo so dhikai| bhayo manohara kÄja| jÄra cora koá¹ prÄ«tamÄá¹| nirabhai thÄnaka rÄja||
phuni tasakara triya koá¹ paradhÄna| á¹£eca na lÄgyo vasana ayÄna| java kÄminÄ« bolÄ« risa bharÄ«| are mugadha tohi ÄÄ« marÄ«||
dhika paro tÄ jÄ«va tavi| tÄ triya kau apamÄna| deá¹£a taho tÄ puruá¹£a soá¹| mana vaca bhalo masÄna||
prÄá¹a prÄ«yÄ ko vacana sunei| hasikari mÅ«rakha uttara dei| hÄrÄ« hÄrÄ« mana me joi| prathama pratijÃ±Ä kÄ«nÄ« soi||
ghá¹ta gula lolita hÄlikai| dehu na kÄ«jai á¸hÄ«la| vÄrija naina daÅa pÅ«vÄ| rÄá¹£yÄ cÄho ÅÄ«la||
pitÄ upÄrjita dÄma| dharma kÄma tÄkai viá¹£ai| mÅ«rakha tÄkai kÄma| karikai á¹£oyo prÄ«tamÄ||
aiso mana mai jÄni| vacana á¹eka kÄ«jai nahÄ«| tÄtai jasa dhana hÄni| hoi manohara kahata hai||
Wealth (here, dÄma, but conventionally denominated as artha), dharma and love (kÄma) constitute the trivarga, the three goals of life for the ideal householder. In that sense they are worldly aims, which is included in the meaning of the word viá¹£aya. In Jain literature the trivarga are often evoked in describing the ideal king, a character who plays an important role in Jain narratives.
While this largely represent the sense of amplification Dryden refers to, ManohardÄs does not amplify Amitagatiâs words in the sense of explainingâas we see for example with the modern Hindi paraphrase in the edition of Amitagatiâs DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä.
Some scholars working within a postcolonial framework have suggested to use the Indian term (anuvÄda) to refer to sense-by-sense translation while overcoming the Western fixation on issues of fidelity. However, as Hatcher (2017) has shown, such suggestions do not acknowledge the complex ways in which Indian intellectuals negotiated and reinterpreted the term. Moreover, in the historical context I am discussing anuvÄda was not used to refer to translatory practices (Hatcher 2017, 117). For these reasons, I prefer not to promote an alternative but rather to go into dialogue with the established concepts as they arose in Western literary criticism, while acknowledging the specifics of the concepts and practices my texts display.
See also Ronit Ricci (2011) about the âuntranslatibilityâ of translation.
See Hutcheon 2006, 34.
DPM, v. 2085: nagara dhÄmpura mÄá¹hi karÄ« bhÄá¹£Ä budhi-sÄru| dharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä mitra artha vijana dhari vÄru| nÄ kachu kÄ«rati na kachu Ärata dhana vaá¹cha na| yathÄá¹ sakati paá¹á¸ita raci padapada rasa saá¹cana| paá¸hai sunai upajai subuddhi hvai kalyÄá¹a Åubha sukha dharaá¹a| manarasi manohara ima kahai sakala saá¹gha maá¹gala karaá¹a||
These performances were themselves supported by the manuscripts. This means that the text was mediated to the performer through a manuscript, and to the audience through a performance.
In the same way as Allison Busch has stated about rÄ«ti texts, I argue that although at first glance âthe performative dimensions of these [â¦] texts are less obvious than of their bhakti (âdevotionalâ) counterparts [â¦] it is possible to reconstruct some of the aural landscape ofâ this early modern version of the DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä.
Group responses are an important aid in the didactic function of the text.
See Hutcheon 2006, 41â42.
See De Jonckheere 2019.
Novetzke (2008) has an illustrative chapter on orality and literacy in the performance of the songs of Namdev. He argues that âthe pothÄ« serves what we might call âprivateâ or elite memory, the literate, perhaps courtly archive, against public memory, an open, lightly mediated, and often nonliterate archiveâthe domain of the badaâ (2008, 101).
I have collected one guá¹akÄ manuscript of ManohardÄsâs DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä: ms. Da-021â28 from the Arrah Jain SiddhÄnt Bhavan.
Tyler Williamsâs dissertation on the history of writing in Hindi (Williams 2014) provides an excellent analysis of what the materiality of guá¹akÄ manuscripts can tell us about the social context and use of the texts they contain. It is especially insightful regarding the combination of literacy and orality.
I have not found any other attestation of a DharmaparÄ«ká¹£Ä bhÄá¹£Ä by ManoharlÄl, so it seems probable that the name ManoharlÄl was a typo for ManohardÄs.
In the guá¹akÄ manuscript I have obtained the changes of handwriting indeed occur in the shift from one substory to another, which is a logical division of narrative portions. This could also be explained as a logical point to have a pause in copying down a text, but we would expect a more careful handwriting if the texts were not meant to be used more or less immediately.
Indeed, Amitagati closes every pariccheda in such a way. Hariá¹£eá¹a also closes his saá¹dhis by âiti.â
They also do not occur at every âendingâ as Amitagati divides the text. This has been shown above to not necessarily accord with a pause in the plot.
DPM after v. 103 (folio 10); DPM after v. 759 (folio 56); DPM after v. 1527 (folio 125); DPM after v. 1840 (folio 150).
Analyzing the content in relation to these divisions does not seem to help in clarifying this.
Lutgendorf 1991, 54, 69.
Orsini and Sheikh 2014 have argued for the long fifteenth century in North India.