Ancient Jaina Hymns

Author(s): Charlotte Krause
Publisher: Oriental Institute

Page 68

ANCIENT JAINA HYMNS
So far, a Sadhu bearing the name of “Sārodaya Gaņi" is not known in Jaina ecclesiastical history. Only thus much is certain from the title “Gaņi”, that our poet did belong to the religious order. As he professes himself to be one of the followers of Somasundara and Munisundara, and the retinue of pupils, grandpupils and great-grand-pupils of those distinguished Acaryas was remarkable by number and brilliancy, it is quite probable that a personality of the obvious erudition and poetic gift of this Sārodaya may have remained unnoticed and unknown, especially in case of a promising career shortened by an eventual untimely death. It is also possible that Sārodaya may be the unknown monk's name of some of the famous personsonalities, known only under their later, changed Acārya's name. Anyhow, the dignified and pleasing diction, which sometimes tends to becoming too highflown, betrays the hand of a promising poet, capable of expressing genuine sentiment in a convincing way by the expedient of so stiff and conventional a medium as Sanskrit poetry.
The poem consists of 26 stanzas, 11 in Sikhariņs (2—12), 1 in Pșthvi (25), 2 in Mandākrāntā (24 and 26), and 12 in Vamsastha metre, alternating with Indravamsā (1;16-23).
The poem is handed down in MS. No. 6592 of the Scindia Oriental Institute, consisting of one leaf of country paper of apparently very high age. The characters are ordinary Devanāgarī, with only the "ai” and "au" in Paļimātrā. In the centre of each side, a rhomb is left blank. The beginning is marked by the usual Jaina diagram and the words : "sitadatra 14:" The
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