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48
Arhat Pārśva and Dharanendra Nexus
Among the composers of hymns after Sāmantabhadra, neither the dialectician Pätrakesari (early 7th cent. A.D.) nor for that matter Pujyapada Devanandi (active c. A.D. 635-680), nor does the poet Dhanañjaya — three other great figures of the southern Nirgrantha Church — refer to Pārsva or Dharanendra since the first and the third composer's hymns fall in the category of the "sādhārana-Jina-stava"; and those severally known as the Ten Bhakti-compositions that have been attributed by the commentator Prabhācandra (active c. A.D. 1025-1060) to Pūjyapāda Devanandi, have among them only one which stylistically can be ascribed to that great grammarian and commentator and none of them refers to Pārsva.19 Next in time, Gunabhadra, the disciple of Bhagavaj-Jinasena in his Uttarapurāna (c. mid-9th cent. A.D.), and śīlācārya of Nivrtti-kula of the abbatial Svetāmbara branch of the northern Church in his “Pāsasāmi cariya" inside the Caupanna-mabāpurisa-cariya (A.D. 869), graphically portray the upasarga-tormentations inflicted by Sambara (called Meghamāli by Sīlācārya and in all subsequent Svetāmbara writings) and the consequent appearance on the scene of Dharana for the protection of Pārśva lost in meditation, However, these works do not fall in the hymnal category of compositions and hence out of consideration. After Guņabhadra, the epistemologist Vidyānanda (c. first half of the tenth century A.D.)20 in his Śrīpura-Pārsvanātha-stotra, a hymn structured largely in epistemological terms, for certain includes a couple of feelingfully composed verses; but Dharanendra finds no allusion there. And even when a devotional hymn on Pārsvanātha was composed in the medieval southern India, such as the famous Kalyānamandira-stotra of Kumudacandra (c. first quarter of the 12th century A.D.), it does not hint at Dharanendra's connection with the Jina,
II
The medieval and late medieval Nirgrantha devotional compositions, which overwhelmingly are of the western Indian and of Svetāmbara persuasion, on the other hand, abound in hymns devoted to Pārsva which contain very telling verses pertaining to the images of the Jina canopied by the jewel-crested hoods of the polycephalous Lord of the Nāgas, Dharana. Also, during this period, two peculiar trends lending powerful impetus to the promotion of the worship of Pārsva comes to the fore. The first is the favoured position accorded to Pārśva in the tāntric worship, due mainly to his special attendants—Nāgendra Dharana and Yakși Padmāvati -- who appeared in southern India in association with the Pārsva imagery from at least the late sixth century onward (Bādāmī Cave IV, Aihole Jaina Cave).21 Of the two, Padmavati was adopted in the religious art of the northern tradition
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