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 51

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Pravacanasāra
chronological value, because a portion of the tradition has been proved to be doubtful; and as to the genuineness of the antecedent links of the tradition, as Indranandi frankly says, there is much obscurity, 1 and Vibudha Sridhara is somwhat vague when he simply says iti paramparayā. A scrutinising search [p. 19:] into the details of these traditions makes us all the more aware as to how we have to grope in darkness to settle the exact date of Kundakunda. So here I can say only this much that we cannot, on the authority of the traditions discussed above, insist too much that Kundakunda should be later than 683 years after Vīra.
KUNDAKUNDA AS A CONTEMPORARY OF SIVAKUMĀRA DISCUSSED.—Now the fourth point about the possibility of Kundakunda's being a contemporary of a ruler Sivakumāra Mahārāja. I agree with Pt. Jugalkishore in noting that Kundakunda has not referred to any such person, nor is there any indication to that effect in his works; his first commentator Amộtacandra, so far as we know, does not refer to any Sivakumāra Mahārāja. It is only Jayasena (c. middle of the 12th century A. D.), and following him the Kanarese commentator Bālacandra, 2 that refer to Sivakumāra Mahārāja, for whose enlightenment, Jayasena says, Kundakunda composed his Pañcāstikāya. Jayasena, in his commentaries on Pañcāstikāya and Pravacanasāra, mentions the name of Sivakumāra or -Mahārāja;3 but at times Sivakumāra's personality plays a very dubious role as in the opening passage of Pravacanasāra, from which one is tempted to suspect whether Sivakumāra himself is, the author of Pravacanasāra. It should be remembered that Jayasena's statement cannot deserve the credit of a contemporary evidence; and when we try to identify this Sivakumāra with some king of the South Indian royal dynasties of the early centuries of the Christian era, it is taken for granted that Jayasena's statement, in all probability, is based on some early tradition possibly genuine in character. Dr. Pathak was the first to attempt an identification, and he proposed that this Sivakumāra Mahārāja should be identified with Sivamrgesavarman of the Kadamba dynasty (about 528 A.D. according to Pathak).4 The patronage extended to Jainism and Jainas by Kadambas is well known; but that is no reason at all to put Kundakunda so late as this. This conclusion cannot be accepted for various reasons: first, that upsets some of the well recognised facts of Digambara chronology; secondly it is impossible that Kundakunda can be put in the 6th century, when Merkara copper plates of Saka 388 mention Kundakundânvaya and give not less than six names of Ācāryas of that lineage;5 and this indicates that Kundakunda will have to be put at least a century, if not more, earlier than the date of the copper-plates. Perhaps it is to support this
1 Srutavatāra, verse 151, which runs thus
Gunadhara-Dharasenānvaya-gurvoh pūrvāpara-kramo'smābhih /
na jñāyate tad anvaya-kathakāgama-muni-janābhāvāt // 2 Relative dates of Jayasena and Bāļacandra will be discussed later. 3 Pañcāstikāya, Rāyachandra Jaina śāstramālā (RJŚ), Bombay, Samvat 1972, pp. 1 and 6;
Pravacanasāra, pp. 1, 17, 244, and 247; I have not been able to trace any mention of
Sivakumāra in his commentary on Samayasära. 4 Also about 475-490 A.D., see G.M. Moraes: Kadamba Kula, chapter vii and the genea
logy facing p. 15. 5 E.C., I Coorg Inscriptions, No.1.