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3 SANMATI AND ITS COMMENTARY
ancient works in Jaina literature, only the works of Umaswati are the first written in Samskṛta. Evidence is not available to show that the authors living prior to Umaswati wrote their works in Samskṛta. Umaswati, therefore, may be regarded as the pioneer author who used Samskṛta in writing the works on Jaina philosophy. In course of time, the fashion of using Samskṛta as a language, to write Jaina philosophy in, became very popular and eminent works of Jaina philosophy were written in Samskṛta along with Prākṛta, Siddhasena being born of a Brahmaņa family was familiar with Samskṛta even from his birth and moreover he was a close student of Samskṛta literature especially the literature of Indian philosophy. After his initiation into Jaina religion Siddhasena studied Prakṛta but all the same the original influence of Samskṛta on him stood remained. It is, therefore, natural that most of his works should bewritten in Samskṛta. Sanmati is the only work that can be considered at present as the work of Siddhasena written in Prakṛta. But even in this Präkṛta work we come across Prākṛta words here and there that have been manifestly influenced by Samskrit words1.
The language of the commentary is Samskṛta that had already its full development in writing philosophical works, for it was used for that purpose by such great scholars as Sankarācārya, Vacaspti Misra and others.
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1 For instance सुविणिच्छियामो, विभजवायं, आकु चणकालो and
other such words.
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