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18
INTRODUCTION
commentaries thereon were almost written in Pra kȚta, Now the extant works of Divā kara are mostly written in Satoskřta.' In some of the Jaina traditional stories there is a mention of Siddhasena's endeavour of translating Jaina scriptures into Samskrta. This activity of his fits in very well with the tendencies of those times. When there was such a movement for the revival of language and literature in the whole country, it is quite natural that the Jaina monk who was by birth a Barbmin should be dissatisfied with the fact of Jaina works being written in Prāksta. But it seems from the stories about Siddhasena that his efforts in the direction were considerably checked because of the rigour of the Jaina tradition.
(ii) MATERIALS FOR HIS LIFE,
So far nothing is available written by Siddhasena or any of his contemporary or successor which might throw some light on his life. Whatever information about his life, doubtful, fragmentary or reliable that we have, is collected mainly from three sources. First Prabandhas (semi historical anecdotes ), second, references, in other works and third his own works.
There are five works available at present that deal with the life of Divākara. Out of these five, two are yet unpublished while three have been published already, Of these two former one is written in prose and the other in verse. The prose work forms a part of the
1 See below p. 27.
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