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260
Shri Jaina Conference Herald.
vrum
delay I herewith annex a copy of the said letter: With reference to the date of Haribhadra Soori I have been enabled to get some further materials chiefly through the kindness of Muni Punyasji Anandsagarji which throw further light on the subject under consideration. I hope you will consider the same. The following portion is necessarily divided into two parts (1) contemporary evidence (2) indirect intrinsic arguments.
Before going to the evidence from the books I draw your attention to one fact. As to your contention that there is a discrepancy of nearly 320 years in the calculation of the dates of प्राचीन आचार्यs in the geneology traced by प्रद्युम्नमूरि I should like to say that herein a difficulty occurs which it is difficult to override. The author writing about Bappabhatti in his विचारसार प्रकरण speaks in these terms.
अहवा पणपनदससएहिं, हरिसूरि आसि तथ्थप्रवक्की । QTA A Agré, IAR A quite 11
The quotation is important in more than one ways. Firstly the author puts Bappabhatti in the thirteenth Vira era. The same thing is independently confirmed by the author of sfit प्रभावकचरित्र putting this बप्पभट्टि in the time of the King Ama Raja, the grandfather of Bhoja Raja. Historically therefore it can be inferred that this acqHIỀ flourished between 850 to 900 Vikrama. Consequently the date of Bappabhatti ought to be taken Vira as given forth in the above quotation. Another reason of taking the above date as a Vira date is that the author is variously quoted between the years 900 Vikrama and 1200 Vikrama. The absurdity of taking it a Vikrama date would put him (Bappabhtti) just in the time of Hemchandra which is apparently false.
Consequently in the same verse the date of Haribhadra ought to be taken as Vira. If anybody puts forward the contention that the dates of old authors and Acharyas are only mistaken, the answer is supplied by the gulf of 300 years put by the author himself between the two viz Haribhadra Soori and Bappabhatti. The irresistible conclusion to which a careful reader is drawn is to put Haribhadra in the 10th century (Vira. ) .
