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writings of Akalankadeva -(Haribhadra Süri even quoting Samantabhadra in the Anekāntajayapat ākā and earlier, without naming him, in his Nandi-vrtti, c. A. D. 750 )-are likewise ignorant of the writings and teachings of Kunda kundācārya.
2. The Digambara Jaina author Indranandi in his Śrutāvatara ( c. late 10 cent. A. D.) tells us about a commentary written by Samanta bhadra on the Tattvārthasūtra (Tattvārthadhigama-śāstra of Umāsvāti );14 Pujyapāda Devanandi, too, wrote the famous commentary, the Sarvärthasiddhi ( c. 2nd-3rd quarter of the 7th cent. A. D. )15, on the Digambara adoption of the selfsame Tattvārthasūtra; and Akal nkadeva wrote his Tattvārtha-vārtika on the Sarvārthasiddhi and also a commentary Astašati (c. 2nd quarter of the 8th cent. A. D.) on the Aptamimārsā olim Devägama-stotra of Samantabhadra (c. A. D. 600 ). Significantly, none of them chose to comment on any of the highly significant works of Kundakundā cārya, for instance his famous and very important Prabhịta-traya-the Samaya-pāhuda ( Samaya-Prabhịta olim Samayasāra ), Pavayana-pāhuda ( Pravacana-prabhrta olim Pravacanasāra ) or Pañcātthikāya-sangaha-sutta ( Pāñcāstikāya-saṁgraha-sūtra olim Pañcāstikāyasāra),-or for that matter on the Niyama-pähuda ( Niyama-prābhrta olim Niyamasāra ), Barasa-aņuppkkha ( Dvādaśa-anuprekşah ). etc. The Digambara sect, since it possessed no āgamas, would have avidly sought and commented upon Kundakundācārya's remarkable prakaranas, no less than Samantabhadra's profound dialectical and epistemology-based works.
3. The earliest known commentaries on Kundakundācārya's works are by Amrtacandrācārya16 who seem to have flourished, on well reasoned evidence, in late ninth and early tenth century A. D.17 It seems intriguing, even inexplicable, as to why on the works of this justly celebrated and for the past thousand years the most venerated Digambara Jaina philosopher-saint, -supposed by modern Digambara Jaina writers to have flourished at the beginning of the Christian ( now 'Common') Era, -no commentaries were written for eight or nine centuries that may have followed his writings !
4. To add to this surprise is the complete silence on Kundakundācārya by the Digambara Ācārya Jinasena of Punnāta-gana in his Harivaṁsapurāna (A.D. 784) where he invokes and pays tribute to Samantabhadra, Siddhasena (Divākara ), and, apart from them, several other pre-medieval Nirgrantha (exclusively Digambara ) writers of eminence. Similarly, Jinasena of Pancastūpānvaya, another preeminent Digambara Jaina writer, in the commentary Jayadhavala (completed A. D. 837) on the Kasāya-pahuda-sutta (Kașāya-prābhrta-sūtra : c. 2nd-3rd cent. A. D.)18 pays tribute to great Jaina writers beginning with Siddhasena and Samantabhadra but fails to allude to Padmanandi alias Kundakundācārya, True, eulogies have been continually lavished on this great thinker; and a miraculous myth of his possessing magical power of levitation (cārana-rddhi ) and his visiting Jina Simandhara in the Mahāvideha-ksetra, a mythical land of Nirgrantha cosmography, is duly woven for him, indeed commensurate with his greatness as is understood in the
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