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

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lier Jaina works. Under these circumstances and in view of the maintenance of the original order of these quoted gathās, it is clear that Pajyapada is quoting from Bārasa-Aṇuvekkha of Kundakunda. That puts a good later limit to the age of Kundakunda. Pajyapada lived earlier than the last quarter of the 5th century A.D., so Kundakunda must be prior to him. Then the Merkara copper-plates of Saka 388, i.e. 466 A.D., to which reference is already made, mention six Acaryas with a clear statement that they belonged to Kundakundanvaya; that means Kundakundanvaya was in vogue, on the innocent hypothesis that these six teachers were successors in that lineage, at least a hundred years before the date of the copperplates, and further back if we take that Kundakunda's lineage began one century, if not more, earlier, it is not too much, because the lineage of a saint does not begin immediately after his death. That brings us to the middle of the 3rd century A.D. as the later limit of Kundakunda's age.
Introduction
THE TWO LIMITS AND THE POSSIBLE CONCLUSION.-In the light of this long discussion on the age of Kundakunda wherein we have merely tried to weigh the probabilities after approaching the problem from various angles and by thoroughly thrashing the available traditions, we find that the tradition puts his age in the second half of the first century B. C. and the first half of the first century A. D.; the possibility of Satkhaṇḍāgama being completed before Kundakunda would put him later than the middle of the second century A.D.; and the Merkara copperplates would show that the later limit of his age would be the middle of the third century A.D. Further the possibilities, in the light of the limitations discussed, that Kundakunda might have been a contemporary of King Sivaskandha of the Pallava dynasty and that he, if proved to be the same as Elacarya on more definite grounds, might be the author of Kural, would imply that the age of Kundakunda should be limited, in the light of the circumastantial evidences noted above, to the first two centuries of the Christian era. I am inclined to believe, after this long survey of the available material, that Kundakunda's age lies at the beginning of the Christian era.2
1 On Pujyapada and his date etc. F. Keilhorn: I. A., Vol. X, pp. 75-79; K. B. Pathak: I. A., Vol. XII pp. 19-21; Dr. S. K. Belvalkar: Systems of Sanskrit Grammar; R.B.R. Narasimhacharya: Karṇāṭaka Kavicarite, Vol. I, pp. 5 etc.; Pt. Premi: Jaina Hitaishi, Vols. XIV pp. 345 etc. and XV pp. 49 etc.; Pt. Jugalkishore: Svami Samantabhadra, pp. 141 etc.
2 I should passingly refer here to a recent discussion on the date of Kundakunda. The second line of the 17th gatha of Niyamasara runs thus: edesim vittharam loya-vibhāgesu nadavvam ; on this Padmaprabha Maladharideva comments thus: eteṣam caturgati-jīvabhedanām vistaraḥ Lokavibhāgabhidhäna-paramägame drstavyaḥ/(p. 16 of Niyamasära, Bombay 1916). Pt. Premi (Jaina Jagat VIII, iv) inferred from this that Kundakunda is referring to the Prakrit Lokavibhāga of Sarvanandi composed in Saka 380; it is not available, but the Sanskrit version of it by Simhasuri is available; and that, therefore, Kundakunda is later than 458 A.D. Pt. Premi's position is logically weak, nor is it guaranteed by the facts as already shown by Pt. Jugalkishore (Jaina Jagat VIII ix). The use loyavibhāgesu in plural does not indicate that it is the name of any individual work, and much reliance, so far as historical and chronological purpose is concerned, cannot be placed on the interpretation of the commentator, who comes long after Kundakunda. The word might refer to a collection of works belonging to Lokānuyoga