Jainas in History of Indian Literature

Author(s): Jinvijay
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown

Page 44

PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS OF THE JAINAS
[29
A
attach any importance to the Jaina tradition at all, we shall have to make Siddhase na the contemporary of one of these Kings. As there is a very strong tradition about Kālidāsa having lived at the court of a King Vikramaditya, and there are good reasons for making Kalidasa the contemporary of Candragupta II, Siddhasena would also have to be placed somewhere between 375 and 413 A. D. But all this is very doubtful, as all arguments must needs be that are based on traditions about the great Vikramaditya who is for more a legendary than a historical personage. But if, as Vidyabhūṣaṇa tells us, a Siddhasena Divākara is quoted by Siddhasena Gani, and if we believe the tradition according to which the latter was a contemporary of Dewar dhi Gani Kṣamāśramaņa (about 453 A. D.), this would agree well with the hypothesis of Siddhasena Divākara having flourished in the time of Candragupta II Vikramaditya. The Nyäyävatāra contains all essential elements of logic which through the works on Nyaya and Vaiseṣika have become the common property of all schools, but it shows, as Prof. Suali thinks, more particularly the influence of Vaiseşika and Buddhist doctrines.
2
Siddhasena Divakara was a Śvetāmbara Jaina. To the Digambara sect of Southern India belongs Samantabhadra who wrote a commentary on the Tattvarthadhigamasūtra, called Gendhahasti-mahābhāṣya, the first part of which is
1 Mediaeval School of Indian Logic, p. 22.
2 Introduzione etc., p. 38.