Research Paper written by london swaminathan
Research article No 1561; Dated 9th January 2015.
Gatha Sapta Sati (GSS) is a Prakrit book of 700 erotic verses. It is dated as a first century CE work. Satavahana king Hala compiled 700 good verses from the works of Prakrit poets. But in the present form it cant be a work of first century CE. There is anachronism. There are lot of anonymous poems as well. Poets who are not popular or unknown to many of us have copied Kalidasa, the most famous poet of the classical age.
Even Hala who contributed 44 verses to GSS, has imitated Kalidas, at least in one of his poems where he describes an erotic scene. Lord Siva takes off the clothes of Uma. She immediately closed the eyes of Siva with her two hands to save her honour. Immediately Siva opened his third eye. Uma was so clever that she closed his third eye under the pretext of giving a kiss on the third eye.
Kalidasa, who lived in the first century BCE and served as the Poet Laurate of Emperor Vikramaditya, described the scene in his Kumara sambhava even before Hala composed his verse:
“In private, with her garment taken off, she closed Siva’s two eyes with her two palms; but as his third eye on the forehead continued looking, she had her efforts foiled and became helpless” — sloka 7 of canto 8
Hala improved it by adding one more line by saying that she kissed on his third eye.
But this is not the only one that will decide the date of Kalidasa and Hala. There are many more things:
1.There is a mention of Tuesday in one of the verses. Days of the week appear very late in Indian litearture. Older poets never used the days of the week. In Tamil it appeared for the first time in the Tamil epic Silappadikaram. Madurai city was burnt down by Kannaki on a Friday. This reference and many other things in the epic made the scholars to doubt the date second century CE given to the epic. Later Thevaram hymn of Sambandhar listed all the seven days from Sunday to Saturday. Though the epic story happened in second century CE, it was put in present form in fifth to seventh century. If we apply the same principle to GSS, it will be dated to fifth to seventh century.
2.Mention of Lord Ganesh in one of the verses also take GSS to a later age. Older poets like Kalidasa never mentioned Lord Ganapathy. Statues of Ganesh came to the South only after fifth century CE.
3.Hora is a word used in GSS and the oldest Tamil book Tolkappiam. Prof. Vaiyapuri Pillay argued that this word is of Greek origin and so Tolkappiam in its present form must be placed after Greek contact in the South. If we apply the same rule GSS may be later than first century.
- Vikramaditya’s distribution of gold coins to his soldiers is mentioned in one of the GSS verses. Kalidasa was the court poet of Emperor Vikramaditya.
5.Hala was said to have married Leelavathy, daughter of Sri Lankan King Seelamegha. Seelamega ruled between 200 and 600 CE according to V V Mirashi. This means that we have to look for more than one Halan!
6.There are 14 commentaries on GSS; but there are seven different versions of GSS. Out of the 700 verses, only 430 are common to all. The total number of verses from the seven editions are 1066. So this is not reliable (Source: Mr Patwardhans translation of GSS).
7.One of the famous similes of Kalidasa is Deepa sikha. This was copied by GSS and other Sanskrit poets. It is found even in Maduraikanchi, part of Tamil Sangam literature. Had Kalidasa copied this simile and the above Uma-Siva episode, the ancient poets would not have praised him the Kavikulaguru.Kalidasa would not have become the greatst of the Indian poets. Tamil litearture has more than 200 similes of Kalidasa
8.But there are lot of similarities to prove that the main authors of GSS
lived at the age of Sangam litearture, i.e the first few centuries of CE.
9.The big difference between the Tamil love poems and GSS erotic poems is that the description of bad family women. Though Tamil literature has lot of references to courtesans, there was no immoral family women. But GSS depicts such women having pre marital and post (extra) marital sex with strangers.
10.Some poets of GSS such as Paliyathan ( also of Puram 387), Brhmachari (also of Natrinai 34) are found in Sangam Tamil literature as well. There may be others such as Kayamanar (Gajan in GSS) and Ulochanar (Trilocana in GSS). Paliathan of Gundukat (Gundakkal) was a good friend of Hala. Satavahanas were good friends of Cheran Senguttuva, one of the great Sera kings of Tamil Nadu. Paliyathan sang about Selvakatungo Vaziyatha, a Sera king. All these prove that Hala and Paliathan were contemporaries of Cheran Chenguttuvan and his immediate follwers. But lot of new verses were interpolated in GSS at a later age.
- One GSS poest addresses the cloud, an imitation of Kalidasa’s Megaduta kavya.
12.There are many poets with Naga suffix in both Sangam and GSS.
13.Though Sangam Tamil literature mentioned Gopis and Krishna on rthe banks of Yamuna (Thozunai in Tamil), GSS mentioned Radha with Krishna in several places. So it must be of a later age.
Interesting Names of Raja, Deva, Swami, Sena
Name search gives much interesing information to researchers.
At least 28 poets with RAJA suffix such as Raviraja, Rathiraja, Maharaja, Ahoraraja, Anuraja, Andhraraja etc.
At least 8 names with SWAMI suffix: Govindswami, Chandraswami, Meenaswami, Satyaswami etc.
Five have SEELA, five have SIMHA, six poets have DEVA suffix
At least 8 names with SENA suffix: Pravarasena, Satyasena, Mallasena, Makarandasena.
The interesting thing about SENA is that it is a suffix for kings. Sangam Tamil literature project several kings as poets. In the same way, many of the Andhra kings or commanders of army might have composed poems. Moreover I have written elsewhere that several Sumerian kings have this Sena suffix as SIN. Sin also mean moon (Chandra) in Sumerian. Eitherway it is typical Hindu to have Sena or Chandra as suffix in names (Eg.Mahabharata has 24 kings with Sena suffix. Also we have Hari Chandra, Udaya Chandra, Chandramati as royal names).
Last but not the least is the number of poetesses. Sangam Tamil Literature and world’s oldest literature the Rig Veda can boast of at least 20 poetesses each. But GSS has approximately 12 women poets:
Andhralakshmi, Sarasvati, Sasiprabha, Girisudha, Reka, Reva, Gramakuddika, Chadraputtika, Revathy, Gunamukta, Tharangamathy,Jakkurangy
Strangley GSS did not mention Ganga, Himalaya and Lord Skanda. Both Kalidasa and Sangam Literature have lot of references to them. There is lot of scope for reaserch by comparing GSS with Tamil literature.
contact swami_48@yahoo.com
Tamil and Vedas 
You must be logged in to post a comment.