Anandrushi Abhinandan Granth

Author(s): Vijaymuni Shastri, Devendramuni
Publisher: Maharashtra Sthanakwasi Jain Sangh Puna

Page 817

AAAAAAAA
ANWALA
A
.
.
.
.
...
66
Dr. Ajay Mitra Shastri
compilation of about the middle of the present millennium attributed to Bhadrabābu with the object of according it a respectable position.
(iv) The text of the Bhadrabahu-Samhita as it has come down to us appears to belong to the Digambara sect of Jainism. But a critical appraisal or its contents reveals that in all probability the text was originally a Brāhmanical one and was later given a Jaina appearance by adding a few Jainistic elements here and there.
(v) Although Bhadrabāhu may have composed a work on astrology, it was probably not known as Bhadrabahu-Samhita, which name is met with for the first time in the fourteenth century A. D.
(vi) As shown by a critical examination of the contents of the Prabandhacintamani and the Prabandha-kosa, also called Caturvimsati-prabandha, their authots, Merutunga and Rājasekharasūri, had no historical sense, and the Varāhaminira-Bhadrabahu episode recorded by them must be dismissed as of no historical value whatsoever.
ber
References 1 These include the Brhat-saṁhitā, Brhaj-játaka. Laghu-jätaka, Yogayatrā,
Tikanikayatrå, Brhadyātrā, Pancasiddhantika and Vivāha-pašala. Of these, the Vivāha-pasala still remains unpublished. For a collection of the available fragments of the Samāsa-Sarhitā, vide my paper in Bharatiya Vidyā,
vol. xxiii, pp. 23-39. 2 Byhaj-jätaka, xxviii, pp. 9. 3 For a full discussion of Varāhamihira's life, date and works see Ch. I of
my India as seen in the Brhat-saṁhită of Varahamihira, Delhi, 1969. 4 Prabandha-cintāmaņi, edited by Jinavijaya Muni, Singhi Jaina Series, No. 1,
Santiniketan, 1933, Prakāsa V. pp. 118-119. 5 Prabandhakośa, edited by Jinavijaya Muni, Singhi Jaina Series, No. 6,
Santiniketan, 1935, Bhadrabāhu-Varāha-Prabandha, pp. 2-4. 6 Tribhuvandas L. Shah, Ancient India, vol. iv, Baroda, 1941, pp. 338-339.
On the basis of the Jaina evidence Shah avers that the Vārāhasarnhitā
was composed 156 years after Mahāvīra's nirvana (Ibid., p. 339). 7 The Prabandha-cintamani, as stated in its colophone (p. 125), was comple
ted in V. 1361 expired corresponding to A.D. 1306, while Rājasekhara
süri finished his Prabandha-kośa in V. 1405 (p. 131) or A.D. 1349. 8 For a full discussion, see Kailash Chandra Shastri, Jaina Sāhityakā Itihāsa :
Pürvápīțhikā, Varanasi, Vira Nirvāņa year 2489, pp. 337-339. 9 Ibid., pp. 339f. Also vide, M. Winternitz. A History of Indian Literature,
vol. ii, Calcutta, 1933, pp, 462, 476. 10 CF. Harişena's: Brhat-katha-kośa (Singhi Jain Series, Bombay, 1943).
San 2c