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Introductory Remarks by FW. Thomas
The Pravachana-sara, 'Essence of the Scripture' (or ‘of the Doctrine,' since pravachana does not necessarily imply writing), is an early and authoritative Jaina text in Prakrit Gatha stanzas, embodying the teaching of the Digambara sect....Of the two Sanskrit commentaries one, the Tattva-dipika, ‘Lamp of Truth,' or Tattvapradipika, 'Illuminator of Truth,' by Amrtachandra Suri, is a tika expounding the whole text; the other, the Tatparya-vrtti, 'Exposition of Purport,' by Jayasena Acharya, is of a more general, less literal, character. . . . The present English translation represents the Prakrit stanzas of Kundakunda together with the commentary of Amrtachandra but the Tatparya-vrtti by Jayasena and the Hindi exegesis in the Braj dialect by Hemaraja have been consulted.
Kundakunda was a kavi, writing in Prakrit verse for a wider public ... there is in it, especially in the Prabhrtas, a warmth more characteristic of a preacher than of a plain dogmatist, and poetry is by no means absent. The very fact that Kundakunda's work is in Prakrit is highly significant, seeing that every one of his famous successors in the Digambara school preferred Sanskrit exclusively ....
In the works attributed to Kundakunda there are no allusions to particular scriptures, and it would be a difficult task, and premature, to estimate his relation to the pre-existing texts. The expression sara, 'essence,' occurring in the titles of four of his works, the Pravachanasara (also a sub-title of the Panchasti-kaya-gatha), Niyama-sara, Rayanasara, Samaya-sara, does not imply a mere summary of the content of books; and in fact all his titles have reference to topics, not to treatises. Upon the perfection and all-sufficiency of the Scriptures he constantly dwells, as in Moksha-prabhrta, v. 90: ...
