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ANCIENT JAINA HYMNS
The only serious discrepancy, viz., that re the mount, which according to some sources is a snake, according to others a lion, and according to a third group, a Garuda, can easily be removed by the assumption that the archetypus, to which they all go back in the last instance, contained a word like "pārindra”, which may mean a snake as well as a lion, or like "vyāla”, which may denote any vicious animal and could refer to a snake as well as to some dangerous quadruped. “Vihanga-rāja”, the Garuda, may simply be a misread “bhujanga-rāja”. Since Vairotyā is anyhow equipped with the snake emblem, the idea that her mount was originally likewise a snake, does not seem to be a far-fetched conclusion. In any case, it means only a supplementary stroke of the brush to complete her picture as that of a doubtless snake-deity.
In this way, the similarity of this Vidyā-devī with the Digambara Šāsana-devī of Vimalanātha of identica! name, emblem, and mount, is even more perfect than Bhattacharya assumes. As moreover, in the invocation quoted by that scholar, Vimalanātha's Sāsana-devī is actually addressed as a Vidyā-devi (“Vairoți haritārcyate, om hrim Vidyā-devı?”'), no doubts can obviously be raised regarding their original identity. While thus the Digambaras apportioned this Vidyā-devī to Vimalanātha, without changing her original character, the Svetämbaras, when associating her with Mallinātha, allowed her snake attributes to fall into oblivion. The only link that still connects this Svetāmbara goddess with her original home, the snake-world, is apparently the above-mentioned name of “Dharaṇa-priyā" under which Hemacan
(1) Loc. cit., p. 140. (2) Loc. cit., p. 175, note.
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Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
