Unknown Pilgrims

SR No.: 007014
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: N Shanta
Publisher: Sri Satguru Publications Delhi
Publication Year: 1997
Total Pages: 820
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 19 MB

Page 203

The Followers of the Ever Growing One
183
Gană Sadhvi
She was a collaborator in the large and important Sanskrit work of the famous Muni, poet and literary author Siddharsi: the Upamitibhavaprapañcākathā which was completed in the year 906. If the date is exact, this means that Gana Sadhvi lived at the end of the IXth and in the Xth century. She was the disciple of Durgasvāmin. In the temple of Bhillamāla, in Rājasthāna, Siddharși recited his poem while Ganā Sādhvi committed it to writing. 134 If we consider the nature of this text in which the working-out of saṁsāra, of the plurality of beings and their varied states, is recounted in parables, 135 we conclude that Gaņā also must certainly have been both learned and very well versed in the doctrine. Siddharși himself called her "the one who is an imitator of the divinity of sacred knowledge. "136
134 "...we learn from his Praśasti that he (Siddharşi) published the Upamitibhavaprapañcā Katha in the chief temple of Bhillamala and that Gana, a female disciple of Durgasvāmin, wrote the first copy, what we would call the codex archetypus. I say the author "published" his work to render gaditā, he spoke or told it; he apparently read it aloud to the audience assembled in the Jaina temple. Therefore, in the introduction he addresses his hearers and asks them to lend him a willing ear. It seems to have been the habit of authors to give a public reading of their work before a select audience before it was issued... It is probable that Siddharsi had intended his work for public reading as a religious entertainment; but, of course, this practice must have been ceased when the acquaintance with sanskrit became a rare accomplishment of laymen. The share of Sister Gaņā in the publication of Siddharşi's work seems to have consisted in this, that she prepared the first clean copy of the Upamitibhavaprapanca Katha from the slips on which the author had written the several parts of the work as he conceived them in the course of time. It is, however, just possible that he dictated the book to Sister Ganā." Upamitibhavaprapañcākathā, Preface, pp. x-xi.
135 Cf. Winternitz, 1977, pp. 525-532. The work is in prose but contains numerous verse passages.
136 prathamādarase likhitā sadhvā śrutadevatānukārinya