Caurasi Bol

Author(s): Padmanabh S Jaini
Publisher: Siddhantacharya Pt Fulchandra Shastri Foundation Roorkee

Page 10

Hen
ande's Caurāsī Bol
by Padmanabh S. Jaini University of California,
Berkeley
In 1956 Professor Hiralal R. Kapadiya published an article called “Dikpata Caurāsī Bol [Pratyukti]: (84 Bol Vicāra) Rekhādarshana," describing the contents of an important metrical Hindi work by Upādhyāya Yashovijayaji.' At the end of this text we learn that it is a refutation of the [Sitapata] Caurāsī Bol, i.e., EightyFour Points of Controversy between the Digambaras and the Shvetāmbaras, a composition by Hemaraj Pande:
हेमराज पांडे किये, बोल चुरासी फेर, या विधि हम भाषा वचन, ताको मत किय जेर (१५८)
Professor Kapadiya informs us that he had asked a Shvetāmbara monk Candanasāgaragani to search for a manuscript of this Digambara work. A handwritten paper manuscript of it indeed was found in Surat and was identified as the original work of Hemaraj Pande. However, Professor Kapadiya received from Surat only the first four and the last five verses of this manuscript, which he reproduced in his article. At the end of the fifth verse the author's name appears as Kavi Hema, who composed it for the benefit of one Kaurapāla in the city of Agra. Unfortunately, the Surat manuscript was never fully edited or published, and we hear nothing more about it.
My search in the catalogues of Jain bhandaras in Rajasthan, prepared by Dr. Kasturchand Kasliwal, yielded several entries for this important manuscript. I am indebted to Mr. Subhash C. Jain of Jaipur who, with the kind help of Dr. Kasliwal, obtained for me a xerox copy of one of these manuscripts, together with correct readings of several obscure words in it. The manuscript, listed as No. 320, has a total of 9 pages copied in Samvat 1723 (= A.D. 1666). Verse number 24 of this manuscript, which lists the eighteen defects (doshas) that are absent in a kevalin in the Digambara tradition, appears as a quotation in Upādhyāya Yashovijayaji's composition (verse no. 19). Thus it can be