Jainas in History of Indian Literature

Author(s): Jinvijay
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown

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JAINAS. IN INDIAN LITERATURE
Divakara. He wrote the Nyāyāvatāra1 a treatise on the means of proof (praniāņa) and the methods (naya) of comprehending things from particular standpoints, in 32 Sanskrit Slokas. Siddhasena Diväkara is said by the Jainas to have converted King Vikramaditya to Jainism 470 years after the Nirvāņa of Mahāvīra. Relying on this tradition, Vidyabhūṣaṇa dates Vikramaditya and consequently also Siddha se na Divakara about 533 A. D., taking it for granted that Vikramaditya of Ujjain is identical with Yasodharmadeva of Malwa who defeated the Huns in 533 A. D. Moreover, he is "inclined to believe that Siddhasena was no other than Kṣapanaka (a Jain sage) who is traditionally known to the Hindus to have been one of the nine Gems that adorned the court of Vikramaditya". Now there is not the slightest proof for Kṣapanaka who is known as a lexicographers being identical with Siddhasena. Nor is there any proof for Yasodharman having adopted the title of Vikramaditya, and no king of this title is known to have lived at the time of Varahamihira. What we know for certain is that the Gupta kings Candragupta II (375-413 A. D.) and his grandson Skandagupta (455-480 A. D.) had adopted the title of Vikramaditya. And if we
1 It has been edited with the commentary Nyāyāvatāravivrtti and an English Translation, by Satish Chandra Vidyabhusana, Calcutta, 1909.
2 History of the Mediaeval School of Indian Logie, Calcutta, 1909, p. 15.
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3 See Zachariae, Die indischen Wortrebucher im Grundriss der indo-arischen Philologie, I, 313, § 13.