UC Berkeley

The study begins by looking at how the compilers of later Sanskrit and Prakrit Kavya anthologies select, interpret, and impose meaning on poetry and how, in so doing, they tie it back into their own wider cultural and ideological mi- lieus. The dissertation then considers the early recensions of the Prakrit Gahakosa (Treasury of Gathas), as it was known in the centuries following its creation, or the Sattasai; (Seven Hundred Poems), as it came to be known later, an anthology of lyrical Maharastari Prakrit poetry commonly attributed to the Satavahana king Hala, whose arrangements, themes, and concerns reveal an ofentimes different poetic universe. The study contrasts the Gahakosa with the later anthologies and the Sanskrit categories on which they are based, reflecting, in particular, on the Prakrit anthology's aesthetics of surprise, its inscription of gendered voice, and its representations of naturalness and the natural world. In the second part of the dissertation the discussion of the earlier chapters is brought to bear on Tribhuvanapala's Chekoktivicaralila, the Gahakosa's earliest extant commentary. Part II contains an edition and annotated translation of Chekoktivicaralila 1-28 based on a Kesar Library Manuscript (NGMPP C6/12, nak acc. no. 76). The third part of the dissertation presents further materials for the study of the Gahakosa.