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ANCIENT JAINA HYMNS is also known as the “Pākşika-stuti”.! It is possible that our poet, whose name' and 'whereabouts are not known, tried to emulate that popular piece of poetry and its fascinating tingle of sounds.
Yet while Jinakusala Sūri's stuti is in honour of Pārsvanātha, the present hymn celebrates Mahāvira, the last Tirthařkara, in its first quarter.
The object of eulogy in the fourth quarter is likewise a different one. In Jinakusala Sūri's stuti, it is the "Sīsana-devatā" quite generally, while our poet addresses himself to the goddess "Vairotyā”, whom he visualizes, with extraordinary vividness, as a snake deity of militant qualities and of an appearance fit to fill an adversary's heart with terror, whom he seems to invoke in a spirit of tantric ecstasy and expectation.
Jaina Literature knows several goddesses of this name, as under:
1. In the shape of "Vairoti”, it designates the Sasana-devī of Vimalanātha, the 13th Tirthaikara, in Digambara literature. She is represented as "harivarņā”, mounted on a snake ("gonasa''), and holding snakes in her four hands. In Svetāmbara literature, Vimalanātha's female attendant, described as being of the same colour, but seated on a lotus, and holding a single snake, bow, arrow, and noose in her hands, is referred to as “Viditā", or "Vijay..". The male
(1) "Púrpa Kgema-Vallabha-Vilāsa", Neemach, V. S. 1990, Part II, p. 16 ff.
(2) Loc. cit., p. 22.
(3) Cp. B. C. Bhattacharya, "The Jaina Iconography" Punjab Oriental Series No. 26, Lahore, 1939, p. 133.
(4) Nirvāpakalikā, edited by M. Bh. Jhaveri, Nirpaya Sagara Press, Bombay, A. D. 1926, p. 35.
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