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THE JAINA GAZETTE But as all these inscriptions are much posterior in date to Camunda Raya as well as to his installation of the colossus, we shall see if still earlier and contemporary references are available.
The earliest mention of Camunda Raya as 'Gommata' or 'Gommata Raya' is in the Prakrit work called 'Pancasamgraha, or 'Gommatasara' which Nemicandra Siddhanta Cakrabarti wrote expressly for and addressed to Camunda Raya himself.1
Though the date of the composition of this 'Gommatasara' is not known, it is an indubitable fact that it could not have been composed by Nemicandra before he became acquainted with and was accepted as a guru by Camunda Raya. The commentary written upon it by Abhayacandra says that the work was composed by Nemicandra for the reading and enlightenment of, as well as in response to the questions raised by Camunda Raya himself.2 As however neither the poet Ranna, nor Nagavarman mention Camunda Raya by the name of Gommata (or Gommata Raya), it may not be unfair to conlude that Nemicandra must have composed his 'Gommatasara' only after 993 A.C. Again in the 'Trilokasara', another work in Prakrit by Nemicandra, which also, as said in the commentary written thereon by Madhavacandra, a direct disciple of Nemicandra, and therefore a contemporary both of Camunda Raya and Nemicandra, seems to have been composed for the enlightenment of Camunda Raya,3 he is not called by the name of 'Gommata' (or 'Gommata Raya'. It is therefore not unreasonable to conclude that Nemicandra wrote his 'Trilokasara' prior to his writing of the Gommatasara. The opening verse of the 'Trilokasara' also corroborates this fact. Madhavacandra, contemporary of both Nemicandra and Camunda Raya, in commenting upon this verse, says that one of the several meanings of this verse suggests Camunda Raya's supplication to his preceptor Nemicandra ; and 'what sort of Nemicandra ?_he, at whose feet both Camunda
1. Gommatasara, Karmakanda, verbes 968, 969, 971 and 972.
2 Vide the Introduction (p. 40) to the 'Dravyasa mgraha' ('Saorod Books of the Jaina's, vol. 1.)
3. Trilokasara, p. 2.
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
