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THE CANONICAL LITERATURE OF THE JAINAS
( CHAP
his com. on Visesão. So he must be a senior to him at least by about 300 years or so. Anandasāgara Sūri says that since in the time of Haribhadra Sūri Ambā, Kuşmāņdi and others are mentioned as vidyās and Vidyārāja Harinaikamişin for mantra whereas Kotyācārya mentions only Kuşmāņdi vidyā and Hariņaikamişi mantra, the latter must be a predecessor of the former. If this argument is correct, we must assign to Kotyācārya, a date? prior to that of Haribhadra Sūri, and in that case there remains no possibility of identifying Kotyācārya with Sīlānka Sūri, the commentator of Ayāra, though so done by Prof. H. D. Velankar in No. 1520.
As regards others who have written super-commentaries in Samskrta, Maladhārin Hemacandra Sūri and Śricandra Sūri may be here mentioned.
Now we may take up the question about the date of Samskrta commentaries of the Jaina canon. But, before doing so we may mention the fact that though it is difficult to exactly define the periods of the various strata underlying the four types of commentaries on the Agamas two of which are often much intermingled, yet it should not be forgotten that they serve "as a depository of very many ancient, historical or semi-historical traditions on the one hand, and of a great mass of popular narrative themes on the other."
About the date of the Samskrta commentaries pertaining to Jaina canonical literature, it may be safely asserted that they had
Hemacandra. But, from p. 17 of A Des. Cat of MSS. in the Jain Bhandaras at Pattan it appears that it occurs in a MS. of Kotyācārya's work. Whatever it may be, I am unable to accept his view unless I get a satisfactory reply to each of the following querries:
(i) Does this quotation occur in other Mss? And, if so, what are those Ms8 ? (ii) Who is the father of this quotation ? (iii) Does the word samarthita convey the idea of collaboration ?
(iv) If Kotyācārya had helped Jinabhadra Gaņi as suggested by Prof, Velankar, they would be contemporaries. And, in that case how can the
inference drawn from the line 7161agaifa...... be reconciled with this view ? 1 Anandasāgara Sūri considers it to be the 10th century of Vira era. 2 See A His of Ind. Lit. (vol. II, p. 484).
