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Siddhasena Divākara and Vikramaditya
works survives, yet an astronomer author Siddhasena is testified by Varahamihira in his Bṛhajjātaka.
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The mentioning of this 'Śrutasena' alone would therefore be sufficient evidence to show that once, whatever may be the actual time of composition of the Jyotirvidābharaṇa, a non-Jinistic tradition did exist which connected Siddhasena and Vikramaditya as contemporaries. The commentator further quotes four panegyrical stanzas which Siddhasena Divākara is related to have composed in honour of Vikramaditya.
2. Siddhasena and Vikramaditya in Jaina Literature The episode of the four Ślokas referred to by Bhavaratna is one of the Vikramaditya-Siddhasena stories found in the Jaina Prabandhas and Kathānakas". It relates how Siddhasena, seeking an interview with King Vikramaditya and stopped at the palace gate by the doorkeeper, sent in to the king a poetic Samskṛta message stating that, with four Ślokas in his hand, a mendicant friar was waiting outside, wondering whether he should come or go. Allowed entrance by a similar Samskṛta stanza of the king, Siddhasena entered, recited his four Ślokas, and thus won the favour of the king.
Another well-known episode is that of the Jina statue which Siddhasena caused to appear out of a Śiva-linga in the presence of the king by the recitation of some of his renowned hymns, and of the subsequent restitution to the Jainas of the temple concerned, and the endowment of the latter with the substantial grant of several hundreds of villages18 With this episode I have dealt in my article " जैन साहित्य और महाकाल मन्दिर " . 19
A third story tells how Vikrama, hearing people in the street refer to Siddhasena as 'Sarvajña-putra' and desirous of testing the appropriateness of this epithet, greeted the ascetic by mental obeisance only, in response to which the latter, with loud voice and lifted-up hand, extended his 'Dharmalabha', the formula with which Śvetämbara Sadhus are still accustomed to greet laymen2".
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