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Siddhasena Divākara and Vikramāditya*
Jaina literature often and again refers to Vikramāditya, the Sakāri and Samvatsara-pravartaka, as to a personality of undoubted historicity. Brave in battle, efficient as a ruler, interested and proficient in arts and learning, lavishly generous, devoted to the exponents of religion, and keen on visiting and endowing places of worship, Vikramāditya is to the Jainas the model of a historical Śrāvaka king, ranging with Śreņika, Samprati and Kumārapāla.
The pertinent evidence, it is true, might be pronounced to be of limited value so far as derived from epic poetry, legend, and even ecclesiastical history,- literature classed as 'aupadesika'and therefore open to the suspicion of treating the historical truth of its subject-matter as less important than its edifying or proselytizing qualities.
As a matter of fact, however, such evidence is also found in those dry chronological and genealogical lists which enumerate pontiffs along with contemporaneous rulers, representative luminaries of the respective periods ( 'yugapradhāna'), and other items characteristic of the time. These Gurvāvalis, Patřāvalīs, etc., likewise reiterate that Vikramāditya, whose Sarvat started 470 years after Mahāvīra's Nirvāṇa and 135 years prior to the year of commencement of the Sālivāhana Samvat, was a historical Jaina
king.
Most of those works connect Vikramāditya's name with that of the Jaina logician and lyric poet Siddhasena Divākara as that of his spiritual teacher. Since Siddhasena Divākara is a well-known figure in Jaina literature and some of his works are available, it
* Published in Vikrama Volume, Scindia Oriental Institute, Ujjain,
1948.
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