Religious Quest of India

SR No.: 011031
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: J N Farquhar, Griswold
Publisher: J N Farquhar Griswold
Total Pages: 365
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 25 MB

Page 103

JAINA COMMUNITY
77
time at the court of King Vikramaditya.1 There was another equally learned ascetic called Vriddhavādī, and these two were anxious to meet and discover whose learning entitled him to be regarded as the superior of the other. At last they did encounter each other, but unfortunately they met in a jungle where the only judges they could find to decide their cause were ignorant village cowherds. Siddhasena, fresh from the Sanskrit-loving court, began the dispute, but used so many Sanskrit words that the cowherds had no idea what he was talking about, and quickly gave the palm to Vriddhavādi who spoke in the simplest language and quoted many a shrewd rural jest and proverb; so Siddhasena had to accept Vriddhavādī as his conqueror and guru. Siddhasena, however, still proud of his Sanskrit, formed the plan of translating all the Jaina scriptures from Magadhi (a language understood by the common people) into Sanskrit: but his guru showed him the sin it would be thus to place them out of the reach of ordinary folk, and as penance for the very idea he wandered about for twelve years without uttering a word. His importance to Jainism lies evidently in his failure to sanskritize either the language or the scriptures; but he is also credited with the conversion to Jainism of King Vikramaditya of Ujjain and of Devapāla, king of Kumarapura. He is supposed to have died about
57 B.C.
Two other events are supposed to have happened about this time, the defeat of the Buddhists in a great argument by a famous Jaina controversialist, an ascetic called Ārya
2
1 Vikramaditya, according to tradition, was king of Ujjain, and 'the golden age of Sanskrit literature is said to have coincided with his reign. He is now considered by many scholars to be a purely legendary monarch.
There is said to be always a marked difference between the speech of a Brahman and a Jaina, since the former use as many Sanskrit words as possible, and the latter, especially the Sthanakavāsī, use the simple vernacular.