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ĀRĀDHANĀ-KARNĀȚA-ȚIKĀ
HAMPA NAGARAJAIAH In Jaina narrative literature there are a number of stories and anthologies of stories (kathā-kośa) which belong to the tradition of Arādhanā, a treatise on the superior and the inferior varieties of death, authored by Sivakoti alias Sivārya (Pkt. Sivajja). The Ārādhanā olim Mulārādhanā, also called Bhagavati-Arādhanā and Brhadārādhanā, in Jaina Sauraseni Prakrit containing about 2170 gāthās, is one of the very early texts (c. 1-2nd cent. C.E.), which belongs to the tradition of Lohārya alias Lohācārya.
Bhrājisņu (c. 800 C.E.) has composed a Kannada comm. perhaps even earlier contemporary to Vijayodayātikā of Aparājita-sūri (C. 9th cent) and definitely earlier to Brhat-kathā-kośa of Harisena (C. 930).
Āradhana-Karnāta-Tikā. (AKT) the Kannada Comm. of Bhrājisnu, was fairly a voluminous work consisting of not less than of about 175 tales, practically covering the whole range of Ārādhana text. Albeit, only a bunch of 19 tales apropos of the kavaca section has come down to us. The word Kavaca is of greater significance; it is an armour of spiritual protection to the ārādhaka, the person who is committed to emacipation of body and of passions through external and internal penances. Like the kavaca, coat of armour, protecting a soldier, here the kavaca, in the form of exhortation by illustration of stories of religious martyrs who boldly sustained the calamities and the visiting afflictions. It is a sort of psychological morale boosting to take more courage, to make the ārādhaka more determined to face the veritable death.
Though Bhrājișnu is totally unknown entity in the entire corpus of the known patriarchs and pontiffs and authors of Karnātaka; but still Bhrājisņu is not an unusual name; it is mentioned in the list of 1008 names for the Tirthankaras. Therefore it is a pakka typical nomen of the Jina tradition, one and only author in the whole body of Jaina literature to mention the name of Bhrājisnu and his work AKT. Rāmacandra-mumuksu (c. 10th cent) is a friar and a Sanskrit author of Punyāsrava-Kathākośa, an anthology of tales of wholesome karmic influx. Ramacandra also admits that he has borrowed the theme and model, in narrating the story of Śreņika, from Bhrājişnu's AKT. From this statement two things become clear: i. Bhrājişnu's work was so
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