Caurasi Bol

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

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been discovered. It should however be noted that this work did not spring up in an accidental manner. It is a product of a great upheaval caused by the rise of a movement called Ādhyātmikashailī, or Spiritual Movement that flourished in the 16th and 17th centuries in North India, especially in the region surrounding Agra in UP and Jaipur in Rajasthan. No individual has been credited with the starting of this movement, but rather a group of Digambara and Shvetāmbara householders (shrāvaka-s), prominent among whom is the poet (Kavi) Banarasidas, the famous author of the the Hindi Samayasārd-Nataka. This poetical work was based on the Samayasāra of Ācārya Kundakunda and a commentary thereupon called the Atmākhyāti-Tikā by Amrtacandra Sūri. This work was completed in 1636, some seven years before his death in 1643. His work created a major dissension within the Shvetāmbara community primarily because Banarasidas, a wealthy man bom in the Shrīmālī merchant caste was a Shvetāmbara by birth. He was known to be a lay disciple of one Bhānuvijaya Sūri of the Shvetāmbara Kharataragaccha. He had come under the sway of the teachings of Ācārya Kundakunda, notably that of the nishcaya-nuya expounded in the Samayasāra. His Hindi Samayasāru-Nataka became a magnet for attracting a great many people of the Digambara and Shvetāmbara communities to this movement. The Shvetāmbaras veered towards a onesided understanding of this profound doctrine which resulted in their abandonment of all ritual activities such as worshipping in the temples, taking the vows from the sādhus and performing confessions and so forth required of a true Jaina householder. Two prominent Shvetāmbara writers alarmed by this defection undertook to combat the influence of Banarasidas and wrote highly academic and extensive works in refutation of this movement. The first among these was none other than the Upādhyāya Yashovijaya, the author of the Pratyukti given above whose date is given as 1624-1688. The title of his work itself is revealing: Adhyātma-mata-pariksha where he mentions Banarasidas by name saying that he will examine the various tenets held by him and his followers who claim themselves to be the Neo-Digambaras. This major Sanskrit work of 461 pages with a Hindi translation) by Abhaya Shekhara Muni was published in Bombay circa 1940.
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