Gandharavada

Author(s): Esther A Solomon
Publisher: Gujarat Vidyasabha

Page 27

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nuns,
Viseṣāvasyaka-bhāṣya. It was completed in Vikram Samvat 1175, as the author himself says. We are, further, told that four monks-Abhayakumaragani, Dhanadevagani, Jinabhadragani and Vibudhacandramuni-and two Śrimahānanda and Śrīmahattară Viramati ganini, helped in the composition of this work. This commentary is the best and the most popular of all the commentaries on the Viseṣavasyakabhāṣya, and can be said to have eclipsed the others. It has captured the very spirit of the original text and laid it bare before the reader in all its purity, bringing out the unmanifest aspects in their fullness.
Hemacandra has, at the end of the Viseṣavasyaka-vivaraṇa, given us a brief sketch of his spiritual career as also an account of his works through an allegory. He says he was sunk deep in the ocean of life full of painful things like birth, old age, etc.; but a noble person placed him in a ship in the form of right intuition or faith, right knowledge and right conduct, so that he could reach without much difficulty the island of Auspicious Jewel (Šiva-ratna), Emancipation. The noble gentleman also gave him a jewel in the form of a good mind placed in a casket of good intention and told him that as long as he preserved this jewel, no harm would come to the ship which would reach its destination without any serious obstruction. But if he somehow parted with this jewel, the ship would be shattered. He also warned him that on account of this jewel, the soldier-pirates of King Delusion would pursue him, and they might even succeed in tearing off the sides of the casket of Good Intention. He also explained how, in the event of this calamity, the sides were to be replaced. Explaining all this the great soul sailed with him for some time and then disappeared. Coming to know of this, King Delusion, residing in the city of Imprudence (Pramada), cautioned his soldiers that their enemy had shown a soul plunged in mundane life the way to the island of Sivaratna (Auspicious Jewel) and the latter was journeying in that direction taking other like souls with him. They must pursue him before the latter brought an end to the