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JAIN JOURNAL VOL-XXXIX, NO. 4 APRIL. 2005
enamoured by the beauty of a bewitching dancing girl from whose clutches he was able to save the misled king and set him to right path.12
In another legand related to Gauḍa it is stated that once king Yaśovarman, all of a sudden, attacked King Dharma, defeated and killed him in the battle field. Then he made Vākpati, the courtier of king Dharma, captive. Vākpati wrote in prison the famous Prakrit Kavya Gauḍavaha in praise of King Yasovarman. The eulogy so pleased the King that he set Vākpatirāja free.13
Bappabhaṭṭi spent greater part of his life at the court and Kingdom of Ama and the king promoted the cause of Jaina religion at his advice in his kingdom by building monasteries, Upāśrayas etc. Sometimes, king Ama accompanied Bappabhțți to his religious missions14 and at a mature age king Ama, the Pratihāra King, died and some years after the death of King Ama, Bappabhatti starved himself to death like a true Jaina monk in 839 A.D. at a ripe age of 94 years. 15
Like the life-stories of other religious preceptors, the biography of Bappabhatti is an admixture of legends and history, facts and fictions. At the back ground of the religious performances of the Acārya, activities of some royal personalities of history, like king Yaśovarman, prince Ama, king Dharma, poet Vākpatirāja are discernable, but in these royal activities lack of synchronization of chronology is evident. But it is not a very difficult task to winnow the husks of legends and fictions from the kernel of historical truth.
12. Mrs. Stevenson, Heart of Jainism.
13. Prabandhakoṣa (Bappabhatti Prabandha)
14. Upadesatarangini quoted from R.P. Chanda's Svetambara and Digambara
images.
15. Prabhavakacaritra (quoted from Sadhvi Samghamitra's article, Śramaṇa,
vol XIV no. 4
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