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The Date of Siddharshi.
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ween Haribhadra and Vardhamana soori which period as I have stated in the beginning of my letter is a dark age in the Jain era.
Sixthly. There is one more matter to which I should draw your attention before concluding this letter. a while describing मनुजगति नाम नगरी in his उपमिति भवप्रपंचाकथा says that it was सम रादित्यकथा इव बहुवृत्तांता (There is a pun upon the word वृत्तांत ) Now it is a well known fact that this समरादित्यकथा was composed by Haribhadra. It takes a lorg time to be fixed as an 3 like this. The compared object must have been so indelibly fixed in the minds of the readers that it ought to follow as a natural sequence following from well-known features. This is absolutely necessary in the case of 391, otherwise the whole structure comes down. Hence the significance of the above quotation. I do not press this last argument too much, but it has its own value. Whatever may be the respect due to Haribhadra in the mind of a he is bound to give 31 of well-known things only.
As to your argument regarding the kind of Prakrit used by Haribhadra looking through the pages of श्रावकप्रज्ञप्ति & आवश्यकवृत्ति one is convinced that the Prakrit there used by Haribhadra was very high. The same used in fe is no doubt decaying, but it does not show that the same fact places the author at a later period for various reasons. (a) The book was eminently composed fer at and rafts. Now under the circumstances he was bound to compose it in as an easy styleas possible, so that the persons for whom it was meant may grasp it. (b) The work is a composition on aftag and its style and terminology must be necessarily simpler than a work on philosophy. I should also state that in the case of Prakrit simplicity, easiness and the use of decaying terminology are all convertible terms. (c) The Prakrit used by authors whose dates are certainly fixed earlier than that of Haribhadra have used decaying Prakrit in their composition. This is cminently so in the case of ज्ञातासूत्र and all the works of देवर्धिगणिक्षमाश्रमण, This disposes of your argument about the use of Prakrit.
As to the use of philosophical terminology I am told the
| SR No. | 536627 |
| Book Title | Jain Shwetambar Conference Herald 1915 07 08 09 Pustak 11 Ank 07 08 09 |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Mohanlal Dalichand Desai |
| Publisher | Jain Shwetambar Conference |
| Publication Year | 1915 |
| Total Pages | 394 |
| Language | Gujarati |
| Classification | Magazine, India_Jain Shwetambar Conference Herald, & India |
| File Size | 11 MB |