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COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF JAINISM
one of his verses occurs in the anthology of Jalbana (1247 A.D) of Kashmir. He also probably was influenced by Hemacandra, and since the earliest manuscript of his work is dated in V.S. 1287, his poem can be assigned to the last quarter of the 12th century."
One of the greatest Digambara writers, of the mediaeval period, was Āsādhara, who wrote his works at a village called Nalakacchapura (modern Nalcha), near Dhārā, in the Mālava country. Unlike most of the Jain writers, Ašādbara was a householder. From his principal Prašasti80 (which is found with minor variations in many of his works) we learn that Āśādhara originally belonged to the Sapādalaksha (Ajmer and adjoining regions of Rajasthan) country and because of the depredations of the Muslims, led by Sāhibudina-Turushkarāja (Muhammad of Gbūr), the panicstricken poet fled to Dhācā of Mālayamandala, during the reign of Vindhyavarman. The poet was a scion of Vyāghreravāla family of Mānļalgarh (Mewar), which is some 100 miles S.W. of Udaipur. His father Sallakkhaņa probably became afterwards an officer under Arjunavarman, for whom we have three dates, namely V.S. 1267, 1270 and 1272. We also learn from the Prasasti that Ašā Ibara's son Chāhada also was favoured by the same Arjunavarman. At the time of Arjunavarman, Aśādhara left Diārā for Nalakacchapura (not far from Dhārā; and composed all his works in the Neminātha temple of that place. He has also mentioned in the Prasisti, king Jaitugideva.
The Jinayajñakalpa 61, which was completed in V.S. 1285, is also known by the name Pratishthasdroddhāra. Its Prašasti mentions 10 works of Ašādhara, which were apparently completed before that date, A number of works of Asādhara are no longer available. However we have his sagāradharmāmsta, also known simply as Dharmāmsta8", which was completed in V.S. 1296, and Anājāradharmāmsta, which is the 2nd part of the Diarmāmsta and was completed with the author's own commentary in V.S. 1300. The first part,
