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Didactic Works in Prākrit
217
The best part of this hymnal literature of Jains is no doubt to be found in Sanskrit, but a good deal of it is also to be met with in Prākrit languages. Even though Sanskrit on account of its greater popularity and circulation enforced itself on the heterodox religions, and soon became the sole vehicle of expression, Prākrit was still continued for writing hymns and other works by the Jain writers for a long time, and this activity has produced many Stotras worth attention.
The oldest of these Prākrit Stotras is undoubtedly the UvasaggaharaStotra attributed to the high priest Bhadrabāhu. Bhadrabāhu, we know, was a great pontiff of the undivided Jain community, and lived at the time of Candragupta the Maurya. One of the traditions says that he migrated to the south to avoid the great famine that overtook the country of Magadha at his time, and died in the country of Mysore, while another of them makes him retire to the country of Nepal, at the time of his death. The attribution of the present Stotra to this sage is, however, not very accurate. But there is also nothing to state against it except the fact that the language of the hymn is much modern and certainly later than that of the Niryuktis. This short Stotra contains barely five stanzas in Gāthā meter, praising and eulogising the 23rd Tirthankara Pārsva, mainly pointing out his characteristics of helping others and rescuing his devotees from distress and difficulties. This fact probably led to the magical use to which this hymn is put by later writers, and a commentary on it tries to interpret it in the spirit of a spell to be used against many a calamity of various kinds like snake bite and others. The name of the hymn is also obviously derived from the beginning words, a device used very much by the Jain writers in naming their hymns.
Of a similar nature appears to be the Bhayahara Stotra of the celebrated poet Mānatunga whose other Sanskrit hymn the Bhaktāmara-Stotra is much more popular and certainly the better of the two. Both the sects of the Jain community claim him as belonging to their creed, and his Sanskrit hymn is commented upon by the writers of both the sects. According to a very widespread tradition, he was a contemporary of the two famous poets Bāna and Mayūra, and composed his hymn to show the great supernatural power of his deity. But it is doubtful whether he is to be put so early. Jacobi's conjecture that Siddhasena wrote his Kalyāṇamandira-Stotra on the model of this hymn has nothing to recommend it, while it is just possible that Mānatunga comes later than this celebrated logician, and may have lived about the 8th or 9th century. His Bhayahara is also addressed to Pārśva who appears to be the most favourite of the Tīrthańkaras to receive praise.