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126/The Raṣṭrakūtas and Jainism
Tikā (Vadḍārädhane): the text opens with the invocatory Sanskrit sloka of Ratnakaranda śrāvakācāra, attributed to Samantabhadradeva; (namah sri vardhamānāya nirdhūta) followed by a prose passage, which surves the purpose of introductory remarks for the whole comm. cum gloss. At the end of this preamble, Bhrājisņu states that thereafter he is going to narrate the tales of all-redeeming personalities, the mahā-puruṣas. Accordingly, he starts telling the stories of 19 eminent personages, one by one. Each story opens with a Prakrit gāthā. All the 19 gāthās, one each at the beginning of each tale, are taken from the Aradhana of Śivarya, corresponding to gathäs Nos. 1539 to 1557 of the text. Each gāthā is literally explained in Kannada by giving word to word meaning and immediately after that follows the detailed narration which expands the encoded gist of the (Ārādhanā) gāthā.
5.4.5.3. In the body of each story also, often Prakrit and Sanskrit verses are quoted. Wherever the dogmatical discourses are prominently discussed to focuss the spiritutal aspect, the quotations abound in number and sometimes it covers the whole page. The felicitous Bhrājiṣṇu is easily at home in Kannada, Prakrit and Sanskrit, as stated earlier. His reading is vast, his catholicity outstanding, he quotes from Bhavabhuti also. The format of each story is so well defined and framed, from the opening line to the closing paragraph that very soon the reader will be familiarised with the pattern.
5.4.6. It is evident that Bhrājiṣṇu has not followed Hariṣena (C. 930) or Prabhacandra or any of the extant Sanskrit commentaries which are all later to AKT., in temporal terms. AKT is definitely based on a Prakrit source. For instance it very much resembles the kaha-kōsu (kathakośa) of Siricanda (Śrīcandra) in Apabhramśa; in the narrative format and in content there is so much similarity
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