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Sanskrit Sub-story and
Subhāsitas in the Prakrit Paümappahasāmi Cariyam of Siri Devasūri
N. M. Kansara
The Svetambara Jaina Acārya Devasūri, who studied under Devendrasūri, was a disciple of Dharmaghosasūri, whose preceptorial geneology went back to Bālacandrasūri of the Jälihara-gaccha, through Sarvānandasūri the author of the Pārsvanātha-carita, and Gunabhadrasūril. He flourished in the last quarter of the 12th century A. D., during the reign of the Caulukya monarch Bhimadeva Il of Gujarat?. In the year 1254 of the V. Era (A. D. 1197) he composed his Prakrit carita-kāvya entitled Paümappaha-sami-cariya in response to a request by a Jaina mendicant named Viddaya, while stationed in a vasati of Pajjunna Setthi, in the city named Vaddhamāna (modern Vadhvāns near Surendranagar in Saurashtra).
This work is in the form of a Prakrit biographical epic divided into four prastāvas. The First prastāva comprises 1735 gāthās, a Sanskrit sub-story in mixed prose and verse and entitled the 'antaramga-kathā,' followed by 37 găthās : The second prastāva consists of 721 gāthās; the third contains 2130, while the fourth carries 1384 gāthās followed by the author's encomium from gathās 1385 to 1403. The manuscripts close the work proper with the words. 'Iti śrīmat-Padmaprabha-caritam samāptam', and mention the total number of gathās to be 72324.
As would be surprising in the case of a Prakrit work, we find in the first prastāva, a sub-story in Sanskrit containing an autobiographical account of mahāmuni Arindama narrated by him in reply to a question by king Aparājitas who wanted to know the circumstances that led the Acārya to
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