Ancient Jaina Hymns

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

Page 61

. REMARKS ON THE TEXTS
Jñānasāgara Sūri whom our present records mention, is the distinguished disciple of the 49th (or 50th) Tapā Gaccha pontiff Devasundara Sūri, mentioned himself, by a certain tradition, as the next pontiff, and as succeeded, in his turn, by his brother-disciples Kulamandana and Somasundara, while another tradition does .not count him as a pontiff'. This Jñānasāgara Sūri was born in V. S. 1405, ordained as a monk in 1417, as an Acārya in 1441, and died in 1460. He is known as the author of the following works :(1) Avacūri to the “Oghaniryukti" in V. S.
1439, (2) Avacūrņi to the "Avasyaka-sūtra" in V. S.
1449. (3) Avacūrņi to the “Uttarādhyayana-sūtra" in
V. S. 1441. (4) “Munisuvrata-stava”. (5) "Ghaņaugha-Navakhaņda-Pārsvanātha-stava”. (6) "Sasvata-caitya-stavana”.
The profound erudition of this Acārya forms the object of the enthusiastic praises of the famous prodigy, the Sahasrāvadhānin Munisundara Sūri, who, in his “Traividyā-gosthi" (composed in V. S. 1455, when he was only 9 years old !), calls himself “Sri-Jññānasāgara
(1) Vide M. D. Desai, "Jaina Gurjara Kavio", II, p. 719 f. and the same author's "Short History of Jaina Literature", paras. 652, 653, and 679.
(2) Vide Jinaratna-liosa.
(3) This work is only mentioned in Muni Caturavijaya's Introduction to "Jaina-stotra-sandoba", II, p. 83. The same Muni, in his Introduction to Part II of the same publication, p. 74 wrongly ascribes to this TGänasagara Suri a "Vimalanātha-caritra", which in reality is a work of Ratnasimha Sūri's pupil of the same name, composed in V. S. 1517. (4) Published by Sha. Devakaraña Alulaji, Bombay, V. S. 1966.
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