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How Jains Know What They Know : A Lay Jain Curriculum
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said to have been contemporaneous with Mahāvīra3. The 44-verse Sanskrit Bhaktāmara Stotra devoted to Ādinātha is attributed to Mānatungasūri, who composed it in the royal court at Banaras to win a contest of the powers of mantra-poetry to free the poet from oppression. The 44-verse Sanskrit Kalyānamandira Stotra dedicated to Pārsvanātha is attributed to Siddhasena Divākara, who is said to have composed it in the first century B. C. E. in Ujjain; by reciting it he caused an image of Pārsvanātha to burst forth from a śiva linga, by which means he converted King Vikramāditya to Jainism*. The ninth Smarana is the Sanskrit (with some Prakrit) mixed prose and verse Brhacchānti Stotra attributed by Vädivetāla Säntisūri (d. 1039); it is chiefly addressed to śāntinātha, and invokes peace upon all beings in the cosmos.
Some collections add other similar hymns to this group. These include the Atmaraksā Navakāra Mantra, an 8-verse Tantric version of the Navakāra Mantra in which the reciter extends it onto his own body for protection; the 19-verse Sanskrit Laghu śānti Stava, attributed to Mānadevasūri, who composed this hymn to śāntinātha to remove a cholera epidemic; and the 102-verse Sanskrit Rsimandala Stotra, attributed to Mahāvīra's first disciple Gautama Svāmī, which describes a complex Tantric mandala for invoking a large array of Jain deities in order to protect the worshippert.
Many of these hymns are recited daily by Jains, both lay and mendicant. Some of them, such as the Bhaktāmara Stotra, have been among the most popular of all Jain texts for centuries. Several also find a place in the pratikramana and other liturgies. Neither bhakti nor tantra have been adequately studied in their Jain contexts; we see here that both play important roles in everyday Jain practice. In most of these hymns the two
* The hymn in question was composed by the Digambara poet and dialectician Kumudacandra in c. A. D. 1100-1125 - Editors. (However, see clarification on the issue of dates' by Cort in this paper under his annotation 2.)
+ It is a medieval composition --Editors.
N. B. What John Cort described are the Navasmaranas as incorporated in the tradition of the Tapā-gaccha. Those of the Kharatara-gaccha is the Saptasmarana or seven hymnal compositions which include those by their own medieval hymnists, namely Jinavallabha sūri (c. A.D. 1060-1119) and his successor Jinadatta sūri.–Editors
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