Bhaktamara Kalyanmandir Namiun Stotratrayam

SR No.: 003015
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Hiralal R Kapadia
Publisher: Devchand Lalbhai Pustakoddhar Fund
Publication Year: 1932
Total Pages: 408
Language: Sanskrit
Classification: Book_Devnagari & Literature
File Size: 24 MB

Page 16

FOREWORD
IIT
some interesting details wanting in the latter, and is not guilty of their downright anachronism. I proceed to give a short outline of the story in the Prabhāvakacharita.
In Benares reigned king S'riharsha; there lived also Mānatunga, son of the noble Sheth Dhanadeva. He renounced the world and became a Digambara monk. His guru ( Chārukirti?) gave him the name Mabākirti. After some time he was converted by his sister to the S'vetāmbara faith. His teacher was Jinasimha who in the end installed him as Sūri. King S'rīharsha was, as we are told in the sequel, patron of Bāņa the poet; he is, therefore, to be identified with the emperor Harshavardhana who reigned from 606 to 647 A. D., but his residence is here wrongly stated to have been Benares instead of Kanoj. Meru. tunga and Guņākara lay the scene at Ujjain under king Bhoja, 1. e. Bhoja of Dhārā, whose reign is placed by V. A. Smith (Early History of India) in 1018–1060 A. D. Their statement is chronologically imposible, since Bāņa, the poet, lived some centuries before Bhoja of Dhārā. For the same reason we must reject a notice in the Pattāvali of the Tapāgachchha according to which Mānatunga was counsellor of Vayarasimhadeva, the Chaulukya king of Malva; he is no doubt intended for the Paramāra king Vairisimha I or II, who reigned in about 850 and 925 A. D. respectively. The anachronism and mutual contradictions deprive these traditions of any historical importance whatever, or as Pandit Durgāprasad puts it aleat Fagagna FIREAR Ardial canaHa. Whether the account in the Prabhāvaka-charita deserves more credit, will be discussed hereafter. The account of Mānatunga's being originally a Digambara and becoming afterwards a S'vetāmbara monk is only given in the Prabhāvakacharita: it is of peculiar interest since it explains the otherwise inexplicable
n of the Digambaras that Mánatunga had been a member of their church. The Prabhāvaka-charita briefly relates the end of Mānatunga's life; he installed his pupil Guņākara as his successor and died by anas'ana. No such notice is given in Merutunga's Prabandhachintāmaņi, nor in Guņākara's com. mentary. In the Pattāvalīs, instead of Guņākara, Vira is stated to have been Mānatunga's successor. All besides the facts (if facts they be) in Mānatunga's life which have been just given on the sole authority of the Prabhāvaka-charita, seems to have been his authorship of the Bhaktāmara and Bhayahara stotras. We are here concerned with the former only. The legend about Mānatunga's composing the Bhaktāmara stotra is substantially the same in all our sources; it may briefly be summarised thus.
The king patronised two famous poets Mayūra and Bāņa, the latter being the son-in-law of the former. (In the Prabandhachintāmaņi, translated by Tawny, Mayūra is represented as Bāņa's brother-in-law no doubt by a mistake