Pravachanasara

SR No.: 003289
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: A N Upadhye
Publisher: Shrimad Rajchandra Ashram
Publication Year: 1964
Total Pages: 612
Language: Hindi, Sanskrit
Classification: Book_Devnagari
File Size: 16 MB

Page 47

Pravacanasdra
He is not ready to accept the position that Kundakunda had a name Elacarya. The date as given in the paṭṭāvalis goes against the various aspects of the tradition recorded in Srutävatära. Lastly he takes the fact that Kundakunda mentions himself as the śisya of Bhadrabāhu, whom he takes as the second Bhadrabahu, who according to the paṭṭāvalīs might have flourished 589 to 612 after Vira; this period consequently leads him to the conclusion that Kundakunda might have flourished from 608 to 692 after Vira, i.e., c. 81 to 165 A.D. This conclusion, he thinks, explains many obscure details.
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A SUMMARY OF THE FACTS.-I have summarised the above views only to see the various traditions utilised in their different aspects by different scholars and the probable date at which they have arrived. The following are the main traditional facts:
i. Kundakunda flourished after the division of the original Jaina church into Svetämbaras and Digambaras.
ii. Kundakunda is the sisya of Bhadrabahu.
iii. On the authority of Srutāvatāra, Padmanandi of Kundakundapura [p. 15:] traditionally received the knowledge of the Siddhanta consisting of Karma- and Kaşaya-prabhṛta, and he wrote a huge commentary on half of the Satkhaṇḍagama. iv. Kundakunda, on the authority of Jayasena and Bālacandra, is said to have been a contemporary of one Sivakumāra Mahārāja.
v. Kundakunda is the author of the Tamil classic Kural.
We shall scrutinise these points serially and then see what other evidences are available for the date of Kundakunda.
KUNDAKUNDA'S POSTERIORITY TO SVETA. AND DIGA. DIVISION.-As to the posteriority of Kundakunda to the division of the Jaina church into Digambaras and Svetambaras, there cannot be two opinions, because he attacks here and there the doctrinal positions, which in later literature, are decidedly the opinions of the Svetambara persuasion, such as the liberation for women, utility or futility of clothes for a monk to attain liberation etc.1 The seeds of this division, so far as I have been able to comprehend the currents of the history of Jainism, go back as early as the days of Bhadrabahu Śrutakevalin, if not earlier, who migrated to the South with a band of monks at the time of a severe famine in Magadha.2 The famine and migration must have been facts, because both Svetambaras and Digambaras are agreed on these points. Comparing the post-Mahāvīra hierarchical lists preserved by both the sects, the last teacher who is commonly acknowledged is Bhadrabahu;3
1 Sutta-pahuḍa 17-26; Pravacanasara III, 8-9, 20 *3-5, 24 *6-14.
2 L. Rice: Mysore and Coorg from Inscriptions, chapter 1; V. Smith: Early History of India (Third Ed.), pp. 146, 440; M.S.R. Ayyangar: Studies in South Indian Jainism, chapter 2 etc.; Banarasidas: Ardhamagadhi Reader, p. xlii; Cambridge History of India, I, p. 165.
3 For Digambara lists see Harivamsa etc. noted above; for Svetambara lists see Kalpasūtra (S.B.E. XXII), p. 286 etc. and the opening verses of Nandisutra. As a matter of appearance the traditional lists of teachers belonging to these two sects agree only upto Jambu, then there is difference, and again Bhadrabahu is common to both. I think, in early days, before the time of Kundakunda, these schismatic divisions might not have been very acute, since Arya Mankṣu and Nagahasti, who studied Kaṣāya-prabhṛta from Gunadhara and also taught the same to Yativṛṣabha, as stated in Śrutavatāra and confirmed too by the opening