Jain Journal 1973 10

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

Page 26

OCTOBER, 1973
Caulukya monarch Kumarapala (A. D. 1143-1174), who will figure below. The author's idea of government is interesting the ruler prohibiting meat-eating, killing of animals, drinking, prostitution, plundering and other sins, erecting Jaina monasteries, temples, alms-houses, etc., spending a good deal of the time attending to the problems of the State, listening to appeals in cases, and passing judgements on them14. That was not a picture of the stereotyped ruler but a real and an historical one will be evident when we shall describe the work of the great Hemcandracarya below. Lomaprabhacarya's contribution, therefore, was not so much in the direction of theory proper as in that of translating the theory into practice.
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Of the same age were the following: the Harivansapurāṇa, ascribed to another Jinasena; the Padmapuräṇa and the Padmacaritra by Mahasenacharya. The Harivansapurana ascribes the foundation of all social and political institutions to Rsabha (Vrsabha), in accordance with the orthodox Jaina views. Like the other two Jaina works mentioned above, it has nothing new to add to our subject15, although none of them can be dismissed as being useless from the general point of socio-political development.
Perhaps to the same twelfth century A.D. have to be assigned the following Jaina authors Abhaydeva Suri, who wrote a Commentary on the Bhagavatī and Vinayvijay Gani the author of the commentary called Sudbodhika on the Kalpasutra of Bhadrabahu1o. These works have fleeting references to the socio-political growth of the people.
14 Cf. Beni Prasad, ibid, p. 228.
"It
15 Cf. Beni Prasad, op. cit., p. 227. On Page 228 Dr. Beni Prasad wrote thus: is interesting to note that the Jainas have their puranas which betray deep Brahmanic influence." The Pradyumnacaritra has been edited by Manohar Lal Shastri and Ram Prasad Shastri in the Manik Chand Digahbara Jaina Granthamala, No. 8. Bombay, Vikrama era 1973. Nayacandra Suri's Hammiramahakavya, (Edited by Nilakantha Janardan Kirtane, Bombay, 1879), contains a few references to Government but not in the manner of either Somadeva Suri or Hemachandracarya. Of an inferior order was the contribution by the Kannada Jaina authors to some aspects of political theory. Chief among the Kannada poets were Gunavarma (circa A.D. 900), Aadipampa (A.D. 941), Parsvapandita (A.D. 1205), Nagraj (A.D. 1331), Madhur (A.D. 1385) and Cidanandakavi (circa A.D. 1680). These Jaina authors have written either on niti, or rajaniti, or service to the State (R. Narasimhacarya, Karnatak Kavicarite, I. pp. 24, 36, 327, 412; II pp. 431, 432, 500). While these Jaina authors help us to confirm the fact that the ancient ideals still survived in these parts of the land, they do not enlighten us on the main political theories as is done by Somadeva Suri or Hemacandracarya.
16 On the Jaina authors and on their probable dates, read Winternitz, op. cit., II. pp. 480-595.