Jainism in India

Author(s): Ganesh Lalwani
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

Page 92

JAINISM IN INDIA
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and his disciple Jinesvara defeated in A.D. 1024 the caityavāsins at a debate held in the court of Durlabha. After their defeat the caityavāsins in conformity with the conditions fixed before the debate took place, left the capital, and Durlabha pleased with the acumen of Jinesvara conferred on him the title of Kharatara that is 'the very keen (one)'. When Jinesvara Suri came to succeed Vardhamana the sect came to be known by the epithet conferred on its brilliant head by the king.
Of Vardhamana Suri, the preceptor of Jinesvara, it is known that during the reign of Durlabha's successor Bhima, he consecrated in A,D. 1031 the famous temple of Neminatha built on Mt. Abu by Vimala, the daṇḍanayaka of Bhima. It is further stated that shortly after the consecration of Vimala's temple, Vardhamana Suri died after having practised the vow of starvation. The erection of the magnificent temple of Vimala is a living testimony to the vigour and popularity of the Jaina faith in Gujarat in the 11th century.
Of the next king, the commentator Rajasekhara (A.D. 1224) in his pañjikä on Sridhara's Nyayakandali mentions that king Karna of Gujarat perceiving the holy dislike of cleanliness of the celebrated Jaina monk Abhayatilaka Suri (a spiritual ancestor of Rajasekhara) conferred on him the biruda of Maladhārī. Peterson mentions a tradition according to which Karna became a disciple of Vardhamana Suri whose disciple Jinesvara won the debate in the court of Durlabha. But this tradition must be wrong as Vardhamana died during the early part of the reign of Bhima I.
The next landmark in the history of Jainism in Gujarat was the reign of Siddharaja when the Svetambara doctrine became, so to say, the legal Jaina doctrine of Gujarat as the result of a debate held in the court of Siddharaja where the Digambaras had to acknowledge defeat. The incident is described in the contemporary drama Mudrita Kumudacandra, and is also narrated both in the Prabandhacintamani and the Prabhavakacarita. It appears that the Svetämbaras were actually much more powerful in Gujarat than the Digambaras, when a great Digambara scholar named Kumudacandra came from Karnata and challenged Devacandra Suri to a debate. This Devacandra Suri (A.D. 1086-1169) was the preceptor of Hemacandra and was the author of the famous work on logic, the Pramāṇanayatattvālokālamkara, on which he wrote his own commentary called Syadvādaratnakara. Kumudacandra is
stated to have vanquished in debate his opponents in many countries from Gauda and Vanga to Sapadalaksa and Karnata. Karnata was the home of the Digambaras of the south as well as the home of Siddharaja's For Private & Personal Use Only