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Sanskrit Sub-story and Subhasitas in the Prakrit Paümappahasāmi Cariyam of Siri Devasūri
N. M. Kansara
The Svetambara Jaina Acārya Devasūri, who studied under Devendrasūri, was a disciple of Dharmaghoṣasuri, whose preceptorial geneology went back to Balacandrasūri of the Jālihara-gaccha, through Sarvānandasūri the author of the Pārśvanatha-carita, and Gunabhadrasūri1. He flourished in the last quarter of the 12th century A. D., during the reign of the Caulukya monarch Bhimadeva II of Gujarat2. In the year 1254 of the V. Era (A. D. 1197) he composed his Prakrit carita-kāvya entitled Paümappaha-sami-cariya in response to a request by a Jaina mendicant named Viddaya, while stationed in a vasati of Pajjunna Setthi, in the city named Vaddhamāņa (modern Vadhvāņ3 near Surendranagar in Saurashtra).
This work is in the form of a Prakrit biographical epic divided into four prastāvas. The First prastāva comprises 1735 gāthās, a Sanskrit sub-story in mixed prose and verse and entitled the 'antaramga-katha,' followed by 37 gāthās: The second prastava consists of 721 gāthās; the third contains 2130, while the fourth carries 1384 gāthās followed by the author's encomium from gāthās 1385 to 1403. The manuscripts close the work proper with the words. 'Iti śrīmat-Padmaprabha-caritam samaptam', and mention the total number of gāthās to be 72324.
As would be surprising in the case of a Prakrit work, we find in the first prastāva, a sub-story in Sanskrit containing an autobiographical account of mahāmuni Arindama narrated by him in reply to a question by king Aparajita who wanted to know the circumstances that led the Acarya to
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