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Vol. XXXIX
JAIN JOURNAL
No. 2 October
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL THOUGHTS IN HEMACANDRA (1088 1172 A.D.)
Satya Ranjan Banerjee
I. Political Thoughts of Hemacandra
2004
Acarya Hemacandra (1088-1172 A.D.) belonged to the twelfth century A.D. and the period of Acarya Hemacandra covering eighty years was the most crucial age in the mediaeval history of India. The crucial age was reckoned between 998 and 1292 A.D. In 998, Mahmud, the Turkish conqueror, captured Ghazni; and this period ended in 1292, when Jalāl-ud-din, the Khalji chief, proclaimed himself the Sultan of Delhi. From the historical point of view, the entire period can be conveniently divided into two: the first period ended in 1193 A.D. (that is the period when Hemacandra actually flourished), and the second ended in 1299 A.D. The first period ended with the defeat of Prthvīrāja Chahamana of Ajmer by Muiizz-ud-din Ghuri in the battle of Tarain and opened the gates of Madhya Pradesh to the foreign invaders.
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It should be kept in mind that the political and social history of India at the time when Hemacandra flourished was the history of mediaeval India which ended with the defeat of Prthvīrāja Chahamāna of Ajmer. So to talk about the political and social history of India at the time of Hemacandra is a difficult task. It is difficult, because we do not have any direct evidence to rely upon; because the literary works of Hemacandra do not give us sufficient material to reconstruct the socio-political picture of India in the twelfth century. In a sense, the primary sources are to be verified by the contemporary literary and other documents. And at the same time, the secondary sources are also consulted for checking the primary documents.
Hemacandra was born in 1088 A.D. at Dhandahukā, a town in the neighbourhood of Ahmedabad, as the son of a merchant. He was
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