Ancient Jaina Hymns

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

Page 80

ANCIENT JAINA HYMNS
author of the present hymn, assuming "Naya+vimala" in the last stanza to be a lapsus calami for "Naya+ vijaya", which latter is the name of Yasovijaya's Guru, who might have been glorified by the poet in this way. The proud language and the erudition displayed therein, would be in congruence with such illustrious authorship. Yet the mentioning of "Dhiravimala" in st. 13 leaves` no doubt that its author can be nobody else but the latter's disciple Nayavimala alias Jñanavimala Sūri. Since he gives his name as "Nayavimala", the hymn must have been composed before this name was changed to "Jñanavimala Suri" at his investiture with the Acarya title in V. S. 1748-9; and since he mentions, in the same stanza, Vijayaprabha Sūri as pontiff, it must have been after the death of the preceding pontiff Vijayadeva Sūri in V. S. 1713 (or anyhow, after VijayaprabhaSuri's investiture with the Acarya title in V. S. 1710).
Still, the word "aindra" is not a wrong clue, if interpreted as pointing towards eventual connections of the poet with Yasovijaya. Such connections are indeed established. For it is well known that NayavimalaJñanavimala wrote Bālāvabodhas on two of Yasovijaya's works, viz., (1) on his "Simandhara-stavana" (V.S. 1763)1 and (2) on his "Atha-yogadṛṣṭi-sajjhāi" (undated).2 Muni Caturavijaya3 has inferred from Yasovijaya's "Aṣṭapadr" and from the "Navapada-pūjā" going under the latter's name, that personal relations existed between Yasovijaya on one side and the three philosopher poets Jñanavimala, Anandaghana, and Devacandra on the other side. This is quite impossible in Devacandra's case, who was born in V. S. 1746, i. e., three years
(1) J. G. K., II, p. 45 ff.; p. 7; and III, p. 1312 and 1631.
(2) J. G. K., II, p. 39; p. 336; and III, p. 1637.
(3) J. St. Sand., 1, p. 101.
(4) Vide "Srimad-Yafovijayaj! Upadhyaya-kṛta Śrl NavapadajI Pūjā”, Jaina Atmananda Sabha, Bhavnagar, V. S. 1981, Introd. p. 7 f..
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