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 20

FOREWORD
VII
D., or more than hundred years later than the date derived from the above notice in the Gurvāvali. This discrepancy proves the unhistorical character of this part of the Pattāvalis. Apparently the line of teachers in the Chandrakula was drawn upon insufficient materials; the number of teachers in it is certainly incomplete, and those that were known may not have been given throughout in their true order.
We may summarise the results of our inquiry into the life-time of Mānatunga thus. Different sources pretending to be based on tradition yield the following approximate dates of Mänatunga A. D. 300, 420, 630, 850, 925 or 1050. As none of these so called traditions is better attested than the rest of them, the contradictory dates derived from them cogently prove that the legends about Mānatunga were not based on historical records. Unless a quotation from, or unmistakable allusion to the Bhaktāmara or Bhayahara stotras will be found in Chūrņis, old Bhāshās, or works of ancient writers like Haribhadra, all that may be asserted with certainty is that about the end of the 13th century A. D. (i, e. the time of composition of the Prabhāyaka-charita, .our oldest source), Mānatunga was already regarded as an ancient teacher. Our present ignorance of his life may be deplored, but the Bhaktāmara stotra is a gem which requires no setting in the base metal of fiction.
Our information about the author of the Kalyāṇamandira is very scanty or almost nil. It has already been stated above that he composed his stotra in imitation of the Bhaktamarà. He alludes to his name Kumudachandra in the last verse of the Kalyāṇamandira, in the same way as Mānatunga has introduced his rame in the last strophe of the Bhaktāmara. The commentators aver that the author was Siddhasenadivākara, and that Kumudachandra was but another name of that famous teacher. This assertion, however, is open to grave doubts. For in the extant works of Siddhasenadivākara the name Kumudachandra is not found. But, in his fifth Dvātrims'ikā, which is a true stotra as indicated by its name fafararlofter, he has introduced the name Siddhasena just as Mānatunga and Kumudachandra did allude to their names in the corresponding passages of their stotras. Why should Siddhasena not have retained the name contained in the Kalyāṇamandira stotra if he had been the author of it? We possess several hymns of Siddhagena; for, besides the 5th Dvātriṁsika the dvă trims'ikās
end 21 are stotras, but they are entirely different in conception and style from the Kalyāṇamandira. It is, therefore, almost certain that Kumudachandra should not be identified with Siddhasenadivākara.
There is another Kumudachandra known from Jain history, viz. a Digambara controversialist of that name who was vanquished by the S'vetāmbara