Ancient Jaina Hymns

Author(s): Charlotte Krause
Publisher: SCIndia Oriental Institute Ujain

Page 50

ANCIENT JAINA HYMNS
of Sakunikā-vihāra 11,85,686 years after Munisuvrata's Nirvana, i. e., in V.S. 1216' (according to later sources, he did so in fulfilment of the last wish. of his dying father, whose death occurred between V. S. 1205 and 1208). He caused the whole old wood structure to be dismantled, and re-built the temple in stone from its very foundations. It was only after a hard struggle with the treacherous river-soil, which once buried the foundation, and with it, a batch of masons, that Ambada succeeded in erecting a firm building, according to the Prabandha-cintāmaņi?. It took a year to complete it, according to the Purātana-prabandha-saigraha*. The Prabhāvaka-carita states that it measured 18 "hasta" ("hastāstādasakaṁ caityam"), i.e., 8 square-yards, which measurement refers, of course, to the innermost sanctum, not counting the several entrance-halls ("rangamaņdapa", "dvāra-maņdapa”, etc.), nor the surrounding chapels which the Prabhāvaka-carita itself refers to ("aneka-devavesmādhyam"), and which later literature mentions under the name of "deva-kulikās". According to Jinaharsa Gani, the temple contained a "lepyamaya' (plaster) statue of Munisuvrata'. All the sources concur in stating that the consecration-ceremony was performed by the Rāja-guru Hemacandra Sūri (who was intimately connected with the family of Ambada, and whose very ordination ceremony had been arranged by
(1) Obtained by deducting 11,84,000, the number of years defining the interval between Munisuvrata's and Mahavira's Nirvana, and the number of years imagined to have elapsed from Mabăvira's Nirvana.
(2) M. D. Desai, Short History, etc., para. 383. (3) Para. 146. (4) Para. 81. (5) Vide infra.
(6) Srivastupala-caritra, Gujarati translation, Jaina-Dharma-prasarakasabha, V. S. 1974, IV, p. 136 ff.
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