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12
JASAHARACARIU
with the topics of artha and kama. And possibly, his change of attitude and attachment for Jainism incurred the displeasure of his earlier royal patron Viraraya or Bhairava of Saiva faith; that is why he migrated to Manyakheta in a pathetic condition. Though he never took dikṣa of a Muni, he lived a life of perfect detachment and had no family at all. His personal sketch clearly testifies to his austere and pious living, great learning and high self-respect. Possibly Khanda was his household name, used in his closer circles.
Puspadanta completed his Mahāpurāņa at Manyakheta during the reign of Rashtrakuta Krishnaraja (939-67) on Sunday, June 11, 965 A. D., under the benign patronage of the minister Bharata. It appears that Bharata passed away during the reign of Krishnaraja; and his son, Nanna, succeeded him as minister. The Nayakumaracariu was composed by Puspadanta, while Krishnaraja was ruling over (guarding) Manyakheta, at the request of Nanna: so it is 'Nanna-namankita'. The Jasaharacariu makes no reference to Krishnaraja; and it describes itself as Nannakarṇābharaṇa. It is thus the last work of Puspadanta. The Sanskrit verses praising Bharata and referring to the destruction of Manyakheța found at the opening of some of the Samdhis of the Mahāpurāņa obviously indicate that these verses were added in later Mss. as already pointed out by Dr. Vaidya; and they are not found in all the Mss. and at the same place. It appears that Puspadanta lived in Manyakheta upto 972 A. D.; the Jasaharacariu was composed soon after this date; and it is quite likely that he is describing, in the concluding Kadavaka, the desolate and deserted Manyakheta (IV. 31. 8.) where Nanna gave him comfortable residence and patronage to enable him to complete the Jasaharacariu.
Dr. P. L. Vaidya had already discussed the interpolations made by Gandharva with clear-cut indications, in 1308 A. D., at the request of Visala Sahu in Delhi. The oldest Ms. handled by him which did not have these additions is dated 1333 A. D. 'The additions, thus, did not influence the copies that were made in the quarter of the century that followed their composition.' And the Ms. T is certainly a faithful copy of a still older and worn out Ms. prepared at least two centuries earlier. It was rather late, for Dr. Vaidya, in the progress of his work on the edition of the Jasaharacariu, to have given the original text as composed by Puspadanta himself and relegated Gandharva's interpolations to the foot-notes. Dr. Hiralalji's first reaction also was to do likewise. But he observes that by omitting the alleged additions made by Gandharva, the context suffers, the continuity of narration is broken, and, in some places, the sentences remain in a detached form. His conclusion, therefore, is that the additions of Gandharva cannot be easily separated without affecting the context and that Gandharva might have trimmed the text of Puspadanta while interpolating these passages. If the concluding passage is removed, then one has to accept that Puspadanta's work was incomplete. This problem, according to him, cannot be solved in the light of the present Mss. material. It is hoped that by studying some more Mss., preferably of the T group, the basic text of the Jasaharacariu, as composed by Puspadanta would be restored. The chances, Dr. Hiralalaji feels, are rather remote. Some apurna Mss. are listed by Dr. Devendrakumar Shastri from Kama (Bharatpur), Delhi and Jaipur: it is worthwhile inspecting them to see whether they help us in any way in solving this problem.
If one recalls a couple of the latest reports from Panjab about offering
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