Hemchandracharyas Literary Accomplishment

Author(s): Kumarpal Desai
Publisher: Jaibhikkhu Sahitya Trust

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Hemchandracharya's Literary Accomplishment 0
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10 Hemchandracharya's Literary Accomplishment O___ Somaprabhacharya or Prabhachandra to his books. For the first time 'Siddhahemsabdanushasana' gave a glimpse of the down of Gujarati literature. His reaction to an incident that awakened Gujarat's self-consciousness and cultural awareness initiated Hemchandracharya's immense literary output. Jaysinha Siddharaj defeated Shree Yashovarma, the king of Malavas, destroyed the city named Dharanagari and brought its invaluable library to Patan. Siddhraraja's eyes fell upon a grammar book written by Bhojraja - 'Saraswatikanthabhavana'. On inquiry he found that the grammar written by Bhoj of the kingdom that he had defeated was being taught in his Kingdoom. The praise of Bhojraja's scholarship reveals to Siddharaja that his merely religional victory was a meagle victory. At that time it was only Hemchandracharya who could write a grammar superior to Bhoja's grammar. In the year 1193 he was entrusted with the task of writing his grammar. For this Siddharaj procured manuscripts from numerous places. He procured eight grammar from Kashmir. With the help of these grammars and with his own genuis Hemchandracharya wrote the grammar, 'Siddhahemsabdanushasan'. Since grammar was written at the suggestion of Siddharaja it was named after him older grammar had three shortcoming - excessive eleboration, incomprehensibility and want
of graded order Hemchandracharya removed these shortcoming and wrote a brief, comprehensible and graded grammar. Another special characteristic of this book. On grammar is that all the five angas (constituents namely, Sutra, Unadigana Sutra, Linganushasana, Dhatuparayana and Ganapatha) are written by Hemchandracharya himself. Other gramarians have written Sutra; and at the most their Vrittis (explanations). The other constituents of grammar were treditionally written by the successors. In writing all the fice constituents by himself Hemchandracharya single handed did the work of all the three gramarians - Panini, Bhattoji and Dixit and Bhatti. His grammar-book made people forget the grammar-books of Vardhaman Suri and Buddhisagar Suriji. Another note worthy grammar subsequent to Panini's grammar is 'Siddhahem-sabdanushasan'. Hemchandracharya's scheme of Sutras makes the courses of study easier than Panini's scheme of Sutras. The aim of the book being purely academic the Sutras of earlier grammarians are used where they serve the purpose. There is, therefore, a notification similarity between the Sutras of Shaktayan and those of Hemchandracharya. Original addition have made faulty and difficult Sutras easy to understand. He wrote these Sutras and the laghu vrittis in one year's time. He might have written Bruhad vritti and other angas afterwards. He wrote