Jain Journal 1996 10

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

Page 19

DHAKY: UMÄSVĀTI IN EPIGRAPHICAL AND LITERARY TRADITION
pontiff goes out of vogue after the fifth and early sixth centuries A.D. There is thus nothing to doubt about the antiquity as also its contemporaneity as well as its connection with the Sūtra-text and the Bhāṣya and hence the authenticity of its content. Had it not been so known or understood or interpreted even in earlier times, Agastyasimha in the sixth century and Siddhasēnagani and Haribhadra Suri in the eighth century could not have ascribed the Sūtra as well as the Bhāṣya to Umāsvāti.
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In the Northern tradition, Umāsvāti is thus known by name and also as the author of the Tattvārthādhigama-Sutra from the evidence of the encomium of the work, which is the earliest, positive, and direct reference, and this must be from c. 350-375 A.D., which is the probable date of its composition.30 The other evidence, direct but outside the original work, earlier noted, is of the Daśavaikālika-cūmi of Agastyasimha; this is of the late sixth century or over half of millenium anterior in date to the Sravana Belagola inscription of 1115 A.D. The evidence on Umāsvāti from the literary notices on Umāsvāti in the Southern Nirgrantha Church is definitely negative till we come to late medieval period when, however, Umāsvāti is called 'Umāsvāmï'; and in early ninth and tenth centuries, the Sūtra was ascribed by the relevant writers to 'Gṛddhapicchācārya' and not to 'Umāsvāti'. As already noted, it was as well ascribed to Āryadēva in some quarters in Karṇāṭa in the late 11th and early 12th centuries A.D. The aforenoted Śravana Belagola inscription of 1115 A.D. for the first time equates 'Gṛddhapicchācārya' with 'Umāsväti', but without, as it today may seem, the support of its own earlier literary tradition which either did not know, or for some reasons avoided mentioning, Umāsvāti as the author of the Tattvartha-sutra. The Northern tradition, on the other hand, does not mention or know 'Gṛddhapicchācārya' at all. Indeed the many works beginning from the late sixth to the 12th centuries, which mention the author or cite from the Sutra as an authority, irrespective of whether they specifically noted Umāsvāti or not, provide not a single instance of an allusion there to 'Gṛddhapicchācārya' (or to Aryadēva either). There was neither ambiguity nor were conflicting claims about the name of the author of the Tattvarthādhigama-sūtra. He was, from the beginning to the end and unequivocally, Umāsvāti.
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30. Umāsvāti's date has been a matter of controversy. Some place him in the fifth, some to the eighth. Since he flourished before Siddhasēna Divākara-his style, too, is archaic-I have preferred the bracket c. 350375 A.D. for his active years.