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CCLXX
Kavyanusasana a proper explanation of the fact of persons of one faith praising the deities of other faiths.
As to the date of Hemachandra’s ‘Sūri-ship’there is no difference of opinion. The Pra. Cha., as we saw, gives the year V. S. 1166-A. D. 1110. So does the later K - prabandha (p. 13). Thus we find that Hemachandra became a member of the Jaina holy order at the age of eight and became a Sūri - a leader – at the age of twenty one. *
According to the K-prabandha the ceremony of ‘Sūriship’ took place in Nāgapura (Nagor) and the man who
* It may be interesting to compare these dates with those of some of Hemachandra's great contemporaries. The dialectician Devasūri was Hemachandra's senior by two years being born in V. S. 1143-A. D. 1087; so also as a monk, Devasūri being initiated in V. S. 1152--A. D. 1096. Hemachandra, however, became Acharya eight years before Devasūri, who was raised to that position, in the year V. S. 1174-A. D. 1118, when he was 31 years of age. At the time of the debate with Kumudachandra, on the authority of the P. C. and the Pra. Cha., Hemachandra was in Apahillapura and present in the court. Hemachandra ( aged 36 ), a junior in age, but senior as an Acharya must have been of some help to Devasūri (aged 38). At the time Hemachandra was not so famous as Devasūri.
If Jayasimha was eight years old when he came to the throne in V.S. 1150-A.D. 1094, he would be older than Hemachandra by three years. Jayasimha became a king and Hemachandra became monk at the saine age, both of them too young for the positions that they occupied. Both, however, discharged the duties of their respective stations in a manner few have dore.
Hemachandra was older than Kumārapāla by four years, if we are right in putting the birth of Kumārapāla in V. S. 1149A. D. 1093. The difference in age between the two, we may pote, was not much.
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