Jain Journal 2000 04

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

Page 37

HAMPANA : THE RĀȘTRAKŪTAS AND JAINISM
193 the Rāșțrakūța time and a contemporary writer of Śrīvijaya, Śākațāyana, Mahāvirācārya and Guņabhadrācārya, has composed a good number of Jaina puranas in Sanskrit. Candraprabha-purānam, Santipurāņam and Vardhamāna-puranam are his famous kāuyas. According to the statement of Jayakīrti's Chando nušāsana(A.D. 935), a Sanskrit work dealing with Kannada metres, Asaga has written five Kannada kāvyas of which Kumāra-sambhava was celebrated.
Motivating spirit of Jaina literature under Rāştrakūtas has been both spiritual and secular. Jains from time immemorial have nurtured refined tastes and tendencies conducive to the development of art, architecture, medicine, grammar and literature. Ugrāditya (A.D. 770840), a pupil of Śrīnandi and a confrere of Lalitakirti Ācārya, composed his Kalyāņa-kāraka, a medical work, at Ramagiri, the modern Rāmakonda (Andhra Pradesh : Višākapatnam Dt). Ugrāditya, famed Jaina ascetic, visited the court of Amoghavarsa where he delivered a discourse on meatless diet and advocated vegetarianism for a healthy and spiritual progress.
Nộpatunga Amõghavarşa, Jaina Asoka of the Rāştrakūța empire, a pupil of exalted Jinasēnācārya-II, was a faithful follower of Jainism. "The king Amõghavarşa remembered himself to have been purified that day when the lustre of the gems was heightened in consequence of his diadem becoming reddish by the dust-pollen of Jinasēna's footlotuses appearing in the stream of waterlike lustre flowing from the collection of the brilliant rays of his nails" (Uttarapurāņa). Amõghavarşa, having bowed to Vardhamāna Jina, wrote Praśnõttara-ratna-mālikā in Sanskrit.
Nrpatunga-Amõghavarşa-I, was a tiny tot and a precious child of 14 years when he ascended the throne of an imperial dynasty. Having grown and nurtured in the learned Jaina matha, he was sensitive and sagacious, but pious, possessing an independent spirit. He had appointed Guņabhadra as the preceptor for his son Krsna-I. Amõghavarşa was the originator of the ritual of the Jaina monasteries at Banavāsi. The Ganita-sāra-samgraha, a work of his protege, graphically describes his initation to Jainism.
Amoghavarsa shines like a polar star on the firmament of the Rāştrakūta kingdom. He had a long innings of over three score and more years, sufficient to irk his son Krsna. The prince could not wait any more to succeed to the throne, lost his patience and came out openly claiming his legitimate right to the Rāştrakūta simhāsana. For an aged father this was too much to swallow. Paradoxically, for the over grown and long awaited son, this was the question of now or