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COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF JAINISM
which are otherwise unknown, will be noticed in the chapter on the Jain tirthas, It is quite significent to note, that this great Svetāmbara saint died in V.S. 1389 at Devarājapura, a town of Sindhu-mandala. He was succeeded by Jinapadmasūri, who too, was an equally energetic monk.
In the 15th century, the dominating monk in the field of Jainism, was Somasundara and his activities are mainly known from the poem Somasaubhāgyakāvya', coposed by his pupil Pratishthāsoma in V.S. 1524 of the Tapā gaccha, Another work, of the same name, was written a few years afterwards by Sumatisādhu, the pupil of Lakshmīsāgara of the same gaccha, before V.S. 1551.46 A third works, written by an unknown author, on the same monk, is known.
The Somasaubhagyakāvyao?, not only proves that Somasundara was busy repairing and building Jina temples in Gujarat, but also in the extensive state of Rajasthan. He was however, belped greatly by a number of Jain merchants, who did not hesitate to spend millions of rupees for the cause of Jainism. Among these rich men, we can mention Narasimha*8, of Patan, Devarāja of Vadanagara·•, the two brothers Visala and Govinda of Idarbo, who were the sons of Vatsarāja, a rich Jain merchant of Ukeśakula, Gunarāja51 of Karnāvati, also of the Ukeśakula. This Gunarāja, we are told, was a favourite of Ahmad Shāh (1411-1443) king of Gujarat, who greatly helped him when the former went with Somasundara and others to Šatruñjaya in 1421 A.D.52 This generosity, on the part of Ahmad Shāh, appears somewhat strange, as he was the greatest iconoclast among the Muslim rulers of Gujarat. Almost all the standing Hindu and Jain shrines of Gujarat, of that time, were destroyed by his general Tāj-Ul-Mulk 58, who was appointed by that Sultan for the sole purpose of demolishing all the temples, belonging to the 'hated Kafirs'. However the great Somasundara, who was a man of matchless energy, continued his task of repairing and
