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JAIN JOURNAL : Vol-XXXI, No. 1. July 1996
Somadeva has also received some attention from contemporary writers on Jainism, especially when there is a discussion of Jaina kings or Jaina concept of kingship. Prof. Jaini, for example, mentions Somadeva at several places in his book though most of the references are in the footnotes.
R.B.P. Singh notes that Somadeva was among "some of the prominent Jaina teachers who exerted profound influence upon the kings and princes of Mysore in their own times 29 and, according to Mehta, Somadeva "was an important political thinker at the beginning of the middle ages in India": 30 but "his very existence was practically ignored by non-Jaina literary luminaries of his day". 31
A certain of the life, times and works of Somadeva can be found in Sadhvi (Nun) Sanghamitra's book32 and in the Encyclopaedia of Indian Culture33 which have provided much of the information that follows here.
Though very little is known about Somadeva's family life and childhood (which is not all that uncommon about Indian personalities of the medieval times), we do know that he was the younger brother of Mahendradeva34 and that he belonged to a Jain order of Digambara monks, Devasangha, 35 in his later life.
Somadeva was a disciple of Ācārya Yaśodeva32 who in turn was a disciple of Nemideva 36
We do not know for sure when Somadeva was born or died but there is little doubt that he flourished in the late tenth century A.D. Somadeva was a contemporary of Puşpadanta (the author of the Mahāpurāņa composed in A.D. 959) "and the statesman-scholar Vadidgangala Bhatta who was also a noted grammarian". 37 Amongst Somadeva's disciples were Vădirāja and Vādibhasimha.38
29. The Jaina Path of Purification, see, pp. 87, 153n, 154n, 171n, 190n,
194n, 313n. 30. Jainism in Early Medieval Karnataka, Motilal, 1975. p. 135. 31. V.R. Mehta, supra note 1, p. 9. 32. Saletore, EIC, p. 1369. 33. Supra note 9. 34. R.N. Saletore, pp. 1368-70. 35. ibid. 36. Devasamgha was "one of the four orders of the Digambar sect of the Jains...
From Jaina literature it appears that the Devasamgha was confined to the south. Somadeva was probably a southerner. His Yasastilaka Campü too bears traces of southern influence" (Beni Prasad, Theory of Government in
Ancient India (-TGIA), Allahabad, 2nd ed., 1974, p. 230n) 37. Beni Prasad says otherwise, he reverses the order of disciplehood when
he notes, "His (i.e., Somadeva's) teacher was Namideva who had been a
disciple of Yasodeva" (TGAI, p. 230). 38. Sadhavi Sanghamitra, op.cit., p. 281..
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