पृथ्वीराजविजय महाकाव्यम् (कवि जयानक - अजमेर चौहान साम्राज्य एवं सम्राट् पृथ्वीराज इतिहास)

3 twelve verses¹ can be traced in the Alaṅkārodāharaṇa of the same author. Jayaratha describes himself as the great- great-grandson² of a brother of Śivaratha, a minister of King Uchchala of Kashmir (1101–1111 A. D.)³. This would bring Jayaratha himself to about 1200 A.D. Now it is reasonable to suppose that if verses from the work of a writer are found quoted in the works of another writer, even if the two be contemporary, some years must elapse in order to make the former's work known to the latter. Thus at a very conservative estimate we may put the date of the composition between the years 1191 and 1193 A. D. The commentary of the poem, here offered, is by Jonarāja, the son of Nonarāja and grandson of Lolarāja, a famous author who wrote the second Rāja- taraṅgiṇī, and commented on the Kirātārjunīya and the Śrīkaṇṭhacharita of Maṅkha. His commentary on the Kirātārjunīya is dated 1449 A. D. and the present commentary on the Pṛthvīrājavijaya must have been written, according to Dr. Bühler, between 1450 and 1475 A. D. It seems that in Jonarāja's time, the Pṛthvīrājavijaya must have been a popular work among the scholars, as this commentator discusses various readings of the text. As the text and the commentary are presented in the same Ms., portions of the commentary have also been lost on account of the defective condition of the Ms. The commentary, however, has been helpful in restoring the missing text in certain places. The early history of the Chauhānas, given by Colonel Tod in his Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan according to the bardic chronicles and the Pṛthvīrāja Rāso of Chanda, is entirely unreliable. But the work under notice is quite reliable for the history of medieval India and particularly of the (1) I. 4; V. 50, 103, 130, 143, 173; VI. 4; VII. 31, 57, IX. 59; XII. 4 and 11 of the present edition (2) Buhler's Report, appendix II, pp. cli-cliv. (3) M. A. Stein: A Chronicle of the Kings of Kashmīr, Vol. I. Introduction, p. 138