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LIFE OF HEMCHANDRACHARYA
Surendra Bothara
The tree of Ahimsa that perplexed the post war world with its unique fruit Mahatma Gandhi was planted and nurtured in the Western Indian state of Gujarat during the 12th century by an intellectual giant named Hemchandracharya. K. M. Munshi has appropriately called him, “the creator of Gujarat consciousness”. Although he lived in Gujarat and loved his motherland, his genius, even during his life time, influenced Indian thought.
Hemchandracharya, popularly known as the omniscient of modern era (Kalikala Sarvajna), was a versatile genius. The stock pile of his works continue to astonish scholars even today. He was a poet, grammerian, linguist, lexicographer, teacher, philosopher, logician, historian and yogi, all fused into one. Appreciating his contributions the German indologist M. Winternitz has said, ...........not only Gujarat and the Jain community owe a great debt of gratitude to Hemchandra, he has also a place of honour in general Sanskrit literature as a compiler of useful and important works on grammer, lexicography, poetics and metrics.”
Jains knew Hemchandra only as one of the great philosophers of their tradition. It was German
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