Jain Journal 1974 01

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

Page 24

108
JAIN JOURNAL
Sanghas mentioned in Devasena's Daršanasāra (A.D. 933), the others being the Nandi, Sinha and Senasangha.50 Somadeva, we may presume was a southerner, and probably one of the earliest to enter the Devasangha. He was a pupil of Namideva who was a pupil of Yasodeva. Somadeva was noted as a great dialectician, a poet of considerable merit, and a master of Jaina theology and tradition.51 He wrote the Nītivākyāmstam in the sūtra form, but the Yaśastilaka in the campū style. Of these two works the Nītivākyāmstam contains a more comprehensive treatment of government and allied subjects than the Yasastilaka which seems to be later work, since the Yasastilaka is mentioned in the Nītivākyāmộtam. Somadeva's style and diction are uncommonly excellent. He is supposed to have written three other works but only one of which called Trivargamahendra-mätalisanjalpa refers to politics. This work is a dialogue between Indra and his charioteer Matali on dharma, artha, and kāma.52
We may now analyse Somadeva's contribution to political theory. Unlike any previous Jaina writer, Somadeva like another Sukracarya deifies the State in the first sūtra of the Nitivākyāmộtam, thus-atha dharmārthaphalāya rājyāya namah. Now, salutation to the State, the source of dhrma and artha. Somadeva thus anticipated by almost a millennium the Hegelian concept of the State's aim being the chief good of human existence.53 The fact that, unlike any other Jaina author, he does not salute the Tirthankaras in his opening verses, and the equally significant fact that in the above work, although he mentions religion, yet allows the reader to interpret it as he will, suggest that Somadeva was more inclined to lay stress on the material rather than on the spiritual side of man's existence. In this, as in many other matters he followed Kautilya, who in his Arthaśāstra lays stress on ānvik şaki (Logic and reasoning) by giving it the place of honour among the four sciences, the next three being in order of importance, the triple Vedas, vārtā (agriculture, cattle breeding and trade) and dandaniti.54 Both Kautilya and Somadeva, therefore, considered knowledge to be essential for the
50 Read Saletore, Mediaeval Jainism, pp. 233-234. 51 Beni Prasad, op. cit., p. 230, n. (1) 52 Beni Prasad, ibid., p. 242. For a good critique on the Nitivakyamrtam, read Dr.
Jayaswal, Hindu Polity, pp. 8-10. 63 Read Nitivakyamrtam, pp. 1-26. See also Beni Prasad, op. cit., p. 230. The
commentator Haribala on Somadeva's work states that Jaina author, instead of saluting the Tirthankaras, preferred to imitate Sukracarya, the author of the now lost Qushnasa Arthasastra which began with a salutation to the State thus :
namo'stu-rajyavrksaya sadgunyay-prasakhine (Jayaswal, op. cit., p. 10). 54 Kautilya, Arthasastra, Bk. I, Ch. ii. 6, p.5. text, p.6.