Essay name: Tilakamanjari of Dhanapala (study)
Author:
Shri N. M. Kansara
Affiliation: Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda / Department of Sanskrit Pali and Prakrit
This is an English study of the Tilakamanjari of Dhanapala, a Sanskrit poem written in the 11th century. Technically, the Tilaka-manjari is classified as a Gadyakavya (“prose-romance”). The author, Dhanapala was a court poet to the Paramara king Munja, who ruled the Kingdom of Malwa in ancient west-central India.
Chapter 8 - The Plot and the Motifs
49 (of 57)
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the Kaia Vaitādhyan range; and Harivāhana's
mess-
age is carried to Kamalagupta and the latter's reply
brought back to the former, by the parrot in the nick of
time saving the life of Bamaraketu.
(18) THE PARROT :
The curse of Mahodara transforms Gandharvaka into
a parrot, who is relieved from that cursed state at the
touch of the magic mantle sent by Tilakamañjarī to Hari-
vāhana to enable him to see the city unobserved. This
transformation of Gandharvaka helps Harivāhana and Kama-
lagupta by serving as a means to carry their messages to
each other. This could have been done by Gandharvaka even
without the transformation. But the episode of the sudden
appearance of the parrot in response to the invocation
of Kamalagupta and later on in the novel, though actually
at first in poetic reality, of Harivāhana, promotes the
suspense sustaining thereby the interest in the narrative.
(19) THE MAGIC MANTLE :-
This motif is invented as an antedote against the
curse of Mahodara, who is but a servant of the goddess
Śrī. Tilakamañjarī is on an equal plane with that of the
goddess Śrī whose dear friend she was in her former birth
as Priganzada Priyangusundari. The magic mantle, thus,
possesses the power to deliver the lower beings from the
