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Introduction
CCIC
Thus in different departments of the study of language as then known, Hemachandra provided students of Gujarat with excellent text books containing the substance of each discipline-presented in a lucid, precise and rational form; for advanced students Hemachandra wrote his copious commentaries giving them all the available information on the subject up to date. For purposes of study Hemachandra's works are unsurpassed.
Thus was fulfilled the royal wish of Jayasimha Siddharāja in a manner and a style befitting that monarch, who, above all, loved grandeur and aimed at supremacy in everything. One may say, Jayasimha not only built a University in mortar and stone but provided it with excellent books for study * .
It is likely that this part of Hemachandra's literary activity was finished by V.S. 1199-A. D. 1143 the end of Siddharāja's reign and the beginning of Kumrāapāla's reign. Seven years (V.S 1192-1199) were scarcely too many for such a stupendous task. It was only possible for a man like Hemachandra whose powers of concentration and retention were developed by Yogic exercises. And it is a question whether even he could have accomplished it unaided and without ample facility of books. As it was, Hemachandra was provided with a good library by his royal friend. Hemachandra, also, had the assistance of his
* As a modern poet of Gajarat with a fine pun on the word Haima has said "Siddharāja by lighting the Haimapradipa-( the Golden Lamp and the light-giver Hema) of Sarasvatī made his name meaningful."
हैमप्रदीप प्रगटावी सरस्वतीनो सार्थक्य कोधुं निज नामनुं सिद्धराजे. From the poem Rāpakadevī, by Prof. Ramanarayan Pathak.
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