Kartikeyanupreksha

SR No.: 002713
Original Sutra Author: Swami Kumar
Author: A N Upadhye, Kailashchandra Shastri
Publisher: Paramshrut Prabhavak Mandal
Publication Year: 2005
Total Pages: 594
Language: Hindi, Sanskrit
Classification: Book_Devnagari, Religion, & Spiritual
File Size: 15 MB

Page 88

INTRODUCTION
69
It is true that the Gommatasāra itself is a compendium based on earlier works like the Dhavală etc. So this cannot be used as a very safe evidence. But this cannot be denied that once these compilations of Nemicandra have exerted tremendous influence on many authors. While explaining some of the gāthās of K.-Anuprekşā Subhacandra has quoted a large number of verses from the Gommatasāra and extracts from its commentaries : that only confirms the suspicion whether Kumāra might be working with the Gõmmatasära of Nemicandra before him. On this point I have an open mind. In case it can be further substantiated that Kumāra is indebted to Nemicandra, he will have to be assigned to a period later than Nemicandra who flourished in the 10th century A. D. (last quarter).
On the date of Kumāra (and his K.-Anupi eksā), all that can be
said is that he is later than Kundakunda, Vattakera, Sivārya, Umāsvāti, Pūjyapāda (c. 5th century A. D.) and Joindu (c. 6th century A, D.), and perhaps Nemicandra (10th century A. D. ), but before Brahmadeva (c. 13th century A. D.).' This is a broad range indeed, and future researches alone can bring the two limits nearer.
The above limits are arrived at by me through the critical and comparative methods of study and objective evaluation of the available evidence. They are in conflict with some traditional views; they are already subjected to some criticism in certain respects; and the responsibility of explaining my position with reference to them has to be duly borne by me.
i) The oral tradition recorded by PANNALAL says that the author of the K.-Anuprekşă flourished some two or three centuries before the Vikrama era ; and the subsequent opinions of some scholars that Svāmi Kumāra preceded Kundakunda and Umāsvāti" are linked up with the identification of Kumāra ( = Kārttikeya) with Kārttika or Kārttikeya who was hit by king Krauñca. The legends and tales do not mention that Kārttikeya was an author or an author of this work ; so the identification is not proved; consequently, the date based on this has no value at all.
1) N. PREMI : Jaina Sāhitya aur Itihāsa (Bombay 1956), pp. 41 £. 2) A. N. UPADHYE: Paramātma-prakāśa (Bombay 1937), Intro., pp. 63 f. Ibidem pp. 70 f. 3) See the references noted above.
4) "The twelve Anuprekşās' are a part of Jaina Faith. Svāmi Kārtikeya seems to be the first who wrote on them. Other writers have only copied and repeated him. Even the Dvādasānúprekşā of Kundakundācārya seems to have been written on its model. No wonder, if Svāmi Korttikeya preceded Kundakundācărya. Any way he is an ancient writer." Catalogue of Sk. and Pk. MSS. in the C. P. and Berar, p. XIV; also WINTERNITZ A History of Indian Literature, vol. II, p. 577. Pt. HIRALAL has uniformly presumed that Kārttikeya flourished earlier than Umāsvāti, see his Intro., (pp. 43 f.) to the VasunandiSrāvakācāra, Banaras 1952.