Vidyākara

Vidyakara (c. 1050–1130) was a Buddhist scholar and poetry anthologist, noted for the Sanskrit poetry compilation Subhashitaratnakosha. Some consider it to be the "most celebrated" anthology of Sanskrit verse Most of the verses, where authorship is noted, range over the two centuries prior to compilation, and hence it may be thought of as a compilation of "modern verse" for the period.

About Vidyakara himself, very little is known. D. D. Kosambi has argued compellingly for Vidyakara having been a senior monk at the Jagaddala Vihara monastery in North Bengal, based on evidence which includes markings on the palm-leaf manuscript of an earlier edition of the work, claimed to be Vidyakara's original, of what may have been shelfmarks from the library in Jagaddala.

Two different versions of the anthology exist. The manuscripts were lost in Bengal during the Islamic period. Late in the 19th century, a palm leaf manuscript was located in Ngor monastery in Tibet. This is now considered to be the first edition, compiled in the later years of the 1090s. Kosambi has argued that this manuscript may even be the original of Vidyakara, and that it constitutes the first edition of the compilation. A second manuscript, in paper, was located in the private collection of the Nepalese rajaguru (royal priest), Pundit Hemaraja. This is believed to be the second edition, compiled by no later than 1130.

The earlier edition was published by F. W. Thomas in 1912 under the title Kavindra Vachana samucchaya. Some of the verses in the palm leaf contain some additional annotations, and Kosambi has argued for these being shelfmarks, possibly from the library at Jagaddal Vihar, where Vidyakara may have done the research to locate the verses.

A second version, with 1,732 poems, was located later in a paper manuscript in Ngor monastery in Tibet. The first version is considered to be an earlier edition of the final compilation; it is felt that Vidyakara may have devoted many years to creating this compilation. The definitive text of this second edition was edited by D. D. Kosambi and V. V. Gokhale, with inputs from Daniel Ingalls (Harvard Oriental Series, 1957). Kosambi prepared a long introduction regarding the provenance of the collection, though he critiqued the poetry as being inferior, having come from a stagnant period without class struggle.

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