Introducing Jainism

Author(s): Satyaranjan Banerjee
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 39

INTRODUCING JAINISM
is Śrīpādalipta or Siripālitta. In the Aņuogadāra he is mentioned as a Tarangavatīkāra. As the Jaina canonical works were finally laid down by the 5th cent. A.D., it is presumed that the author must have flourished before the 5th cent. A.D. The Tarangavati is lost, but its romantic lovestory is, however, preserved in the Tarangalolā whose authorship is variously ascribed to Virabhadra or Yaśaḥsena or Nemicandra of the Hārijyapuriya Gaccha. It is composed in Prakrit verse in 1643 A.D. E. Leumann, who has translated the work into German (München, 1921), says: that Śrīpādalipta lived as early as the 2nd or 3rd cent. A.D. Tradition says that he lived in the time of Sālivāhana. This Dhanapāla also wrote a Prakrit lexicon named Paiya-lacchināma-mālā, and a Jaina Stotra, Rşabhapañcāśikā.
The other one is a Digambara Dhanapāla,69 who also lived in the 10th century, and is the author of the Apabhramsa poem Bhavisattakahā, otherwise also known as Jñāna-pañcami-kathā. This Dhanapāla is a son of Māesara and Dhanasri.
At the time of the Imperial Kanaujo Jain literature was written in Sanskrit, Prakrit and Apabhsamsa including the Deśabhāṣās, and also in Tamil and Kanarese. One of the famous writers of this age is Haribhadra who has written books in Sanskrit and Prakrit. He is, in fact, the earliest Sanskrit commentator of the Jaina Āgama texts. Haribhadra? lived in the 8th cent. A.D., probably between 705 and 775 A.D. He is the pupil of Jinabhadra or Jinabhata and Jinadatta from the Vidyadharakula. He was born at Citrakuța, modern Chitore. He was a Brahmin by birth and had all the Brahmanical learning. He was later on converted to Jainism. On the conversion to Jainism there is an anecdote which runs as follows. "Proud of his enormous erudition, he declared that he would become the pupil of any man who could tell him a sentence the meaning of which he did not understand. This challenge was inscribed on a plate which he wore on his stomach, whilst another legend
69. Winternitz, ibid., p. 532. 70. Majumdar, ibid., Vol-IV, p. 292. 71. Winternitz, ibid., II. p. 479f.