________________
72
Gommates vara Commemoration Volume
The Dravya-sangraha expounds the theory of the six substances that exist in and comprise the universe. The Trilokasära describes the three units of the Jaina cosmography. The Gommatasära, as the title indicates, was specially written for instructing Gommaţarāya and, hence, is of great importance and value. It consists of two parts viz., Jivakāņda and Karmakānda, with 22 and 9 Adhikāras, and 733 and 972 gāhās respectively. It, as a whole, is also known as Pamcasamgaha as mentioned by the commentators. It contains the valuable essence of ancient works of Karaṇānuyoga concerning jiya and karma, particularly the Satkhandaðgama with the three great commentaries'. Though this work is of the nature of collection, with its language, style and discussion on many a Jaina philosophical points etc., it has earned a great name among scholars right from the beginning. The Labdhisāra is just like an appendix to the Gommatasāra describing the way how jiya liberates itself by destroying karma. This brief survey of Ācārya Nemicandra's works shows us that the Gommațasāra is his greatest and monumental work and, hence, naturally, greater number of scholars took interest in writing commentaries on it than those who did so regarding each of the other three works®.
On the Gommațasāra there are available so far mainly four commentaries':
(i) Mandaprabodhika in Sanskrit by Abhayacandra (c. 1275 A. D.): It is incomplete and available up to gāhā No. 383 only of the Jivakāņda. Whether the remaining part was written by the author or not can hardly be decided. Though available in part, it is the earliest available Sanskrit commentary on the Gommatasāra. This commentary, together with the other two, (iii) and (iv) discussed below, is published along with the Calcutta edition of the Gommafasāra.
(ii) Jivatattvapradipikā in Kannada (mixed with Sanskrit especially in the beginning) by Kesavavarņi (1359 A. D.): This commentary is on both the Kāndas, complete and quite in detail. The author seems to have availed himself of the Mandaprabodhikā in the course of his writing. This commentary, unfortunately, is still in MS form.
(iii) Jivatattvapradipika in Sanskrit by Nemicandra (c. 1525 A. D.): This commentary is also on both the Kāndas and complete. The author has followed the Mandaprabodhika in respect of several details. On the whole it is the translation of Keśavavarni's Kannada commentary.
(iv) Samyagjñānacandrika in Hindi by Pt. Todarmal (little earlier than Samy. 1818): This commentary is almost the translation, at times with elaborations of the Sanskrit Jivatattvaprdipikā of Nemicandra. This Hindi commentary is important in the sense that all the Hindi, English and Marathi translations of the Gommagasăra came to be based on it later. Moreover it helped, to a large extent, to make the Gommafasāra popular both among the modern scholars and the laity.
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org