Date of Kundakundacharya

Author(s): M A Dhaky
Publisher: Z_Aspect_of_Jainology_Part_3_Pundit_Dalsukh_Malvaniya_012017.pdf

Page 19

The Date of Kundakundācārya - 205 found in the Dhavala commentary of Virasena. (Cf. Upadhye, “Post Script”, p. 121, ) 58. Premi, “Vatta kerakā Mülācāra," Jaina Sahitya., pp. 648-543 for complete
diseussion.
59. This is the considered opinion of late Muni Punyavijajaji. Pt. Dalsukh Malvania, the present author, and several other scholars agree to that date for the niryuktis. (I have of course evidence other than already stated and known.)
60. The Mulācāra, being a compilation, later had received additions. Once it passed in the hands of the Diga mbara sect, at some stage, verses typical of the new doctrines or those that signified new interpretations from Kundakundācārya's works seemirgly were also added to it. They look quite incongruent with and offer sharp contrast in terms of style and content.)
61. These verses figure in the Samaya-prābhrta.
6). The main Prāksta adopted in Kundakundācārya's work is for certain the Jaina Saurasent. The meters prefered are the late Ārya of the classical and postclassical period and, to a small extent Anustubh.
63. Upadhye, however, ascribes this to the period when the āgamas were the common property of the Svetāmbaras as well as the Digambaras. I must confess I cannot agree with this suggestion. The separation, without declaration between, and without even the knowledge of the Northern and the Southern Nirgrantha (Digambara). had occurred long before Kundakundācārya and on account more of geographical distance and factors of history than due to any conscious and overt disagreements in the earlier stages. There is no evidence at all inside the genuine Digambara works on the rejection of the ägamas shaped by the Northern Nirgranthas in Pataliputra (c. B. C. 300). ( That is a deliberately concocted and propagated modern Digambara Jaina myth to which many trusting minds, including some German Jainologists, succumbed.) The Digambara had lost the āgamas (and these must be their very early version and in terms of number they must be very restricted at that early date, showing undeveloped doctrines, dogmas and philosophy; and this happened due entirely to their remote surroundings, their location in extreme south. It seems more correct to think that Kundakundācārya got some of the agamic verses possibly from the Yāpaniya and plausibly a few directly from the Svetāmbara sources. And this could be only after the YäpanTyas were well settled in Karnāta, that is to say, in or after the 5th-6th century A. D. In point of fact, some of the Kundakundācārya's verses which are traced in the nir fuktis, prakirnakas and similar sources are indeed not very ancient and could by style and content only be dated to the late Kusāna, Gupta and post-Gupta periods. (There are small variations in readings between these and Kundakundācārya's versions. )
64. The Svetāmbara cūrņi commentaries (7th cent. A. D.) often cite from aga mic works now not traceable.