''Suktimuktavali'' (

IAST The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST) is a transliteration scheme that allows the lossless romanisation of Brahmic family, Indic scripts as employed by Sanskrit and related Indic languages. It is based on a scheme that ...

: Sūktimuktāvalī, 1257 CE) is an anthology of

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

-language verses composed in the Seuna (Yadava) kingdom of present-day India. It was either authored or commissioned by the Yadava general Jalhana.

Date and authorship

One of the concluding verses of the text mentions that it was composed in the year 1179 of the

Shaka Era The Shaka era (IAST: Śaka, Śāka) is a historical Hindu calendar era (year numbering), the epoch (its year zero) of which corresponds to Julian year (calendar), Julian year 78. The era has been widely used in different regions of the Indian ...

, which corresponds to the year 1257 of the

Common Era Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the ...

. The authorship of the text is not clear. One of its introductory verses name its author as Jalhana (IAST: Jalhaṇa), the commander of the elephant force of the Yadava ruler

Krishna Krishna (; Sanskrit language, Sanskrit: कृष्ण, ) is a major deity in Hinduism. He is worshipped as the eighth avatar of Vishnu and also as the Supreme God (Hinduism), Supreme God in his own right. He is the god of protection, c ...

. The introductory portion of the text provides following account of Jalhana's family: Dada, a man of the Vatsa gotra, served the Yadava chief Mailugi (Mallugi). He led Mallugi's elephant force against the Kalachuri ruler Vijjana. Dada had four sons - Mahidhara, Jahla, Samba and Gangadhara - who contributed to the growth of the Yadava power. Mahidhara succeeded his father as the commander of the Yadava elephant force, and also fought against Vijjana. He was succeeded by his brother Jahla, who participated in several Yadava campaigns, and came to be known as " Bhagadatta" (the name of a legendary hero mentioned in the ''

Mahabharata The ''Mahābhārata'' ( ; , , ) is one of the two major Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epics of ancient India revered as Smriti texts in Hinduism, the other being the ''Ramayana, Rāmāyaṇa''. It narrates the events and aftermath of the Kuru ...

''). Jahla was succeeded by Gangadhara's son Janardana, who taught the art of managing elephants to the Yadava prince Simhana. Janardana's son and successor Lakshmideva helped consolidate the power of the Yadava king Krishna, built a large tank, and maintained a beautiful garden. Jalhana was the son and successor of Lakshmideva. However, the concluding verses state that Bhanu (or Bhaskara) composed the work on behalf of "Jalha" (presumably an abbreviated form of the name "Jalhana"). The text does not clarify how the two men were related. Embar Krishnamacharya, who produced a

critical edition Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants, or different versions, of either manuscripts (mss) or of printed books. Such texts may range i ...

of the text in 1938, theorized that Bhanu authored the text, which was commissioned by his master Jalhana.

References

Bibliography

* * {{ref end

External links

*
The Suktimuktavali of Arohaka Bhagadatta Jalhana
', critical edition in Devanagari script, edited by Embar Krishnamacharya 13th-century Sanskrit literature Anthologies 1250s books Seuna (Yadava) dynasty