Contribution of Jainas to Sanskrit and Prakrit Literature

Author(s): Vasantkumar Bhatt, Jitendra B Shah, Dinanath Sharma
Publisher: Kasturbhai Lalbhai Smarak Nidhi Ahmedabad

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Contribution of Jainas to Sanskrit and Prakrit Literature
A. D.) and his successor Kumarapala. He was in fact a minister at the royal durbar and by his influence Jainism became the state religion. Viharas 1400 in number were built. Though as gain by adoption, he respected Brahminism Laws against consumption of meat and cruelty to animals were enacted.
Kvyanusasana with a commentary on it called Alankaracudāmaņi, in eight chapters, is a valuable work in literary history. It discusses the poetical theories of Bharata, Lollata, Dandin, Sankuka, Maṁmata, Bhattanayaka and refers to several works of which some are not extant.
5. Meghavijayagani (Hema Vijayagani) was a Jaina monk. He was a pupil of Krpavijaya and 5th in heirarchical descent from Hiravijaya. He was well-versed in grammar, astronomy and logic, and his writings on these branches of learning are now appreciated. As a poet, his greatness is sufficiently proved by his Saptasandhāna, a poem in which seven stories are at a time narrated, in a very so licitous language all the same. In Devanandabhyudaya, of seven cantos, he relates the life of Vijayadevasūri. This was composed in Samvat, 1727 (1671 A. D.). In Santinathacarita, he narrates the life of Santinatha. In these two poems, he has taken the lines of Sisupalavadha and Naisadha, as for Samasya, and constructed his verses to complement them.
In his Satarthakāvya, he interpreted a single verse in a hundred ways.
6. Somaprabhacarya : In his Satārthakāvya, he interpreted a single verse in the beginning in a hundred ways. He has given the meanings of the 24 Tirthankaras of the Jain religion, then in the middle, he has given the explanations of the Vedic deities. Like Brahma, Narada, Visnu and others and at the end, he has brought out references to his contemporaries, like Vadidevasūri and Hemacandrācārya, the great religious preceptors of Jainism, Jayasimhadeva, Kumarapala, Ajayadeva, Mularaja, the four successive Calukya kings of Guzerat, poet Siddhapala, the best citizen of the time and Anitadeva and Ajayasimha, his two preceptors. After this, at the extreme end, he has elucidated reference to himself and in the final conclusion, he has quoted a short Prasasti in five verses written on himself by some disciple of his. His Srgāravairāgya tarangini is a didactic poem. Though not again, he described the dispute of Svetāmbara and Digambara sects.
7. Yeśascandra in his play Muditakumudacandra, described the dispute of sects. He wrote a poem Viarocanaparājaya and several prasastis printed in Jain Prācinalekhamālā.