Kevalaodhi Buddhist And Jaina History Of Deccan Vol 2

Author(s): Aloka Parasher Sen, B Subrahmanyam, E Siva Nagi Reddy
Publisher: Bharatiya Kala Prakashan

Page 137

Somadeva Suri's Nitivākyāmītam : A Jaina Sanskrit Classic of the Tenth Century A.D.
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followed by all-the Jainas and non-Jainas, -he declares that the king, should follow the Lōkāyata or materialistic point of view which alone conduces to the welfare of the State and exterminates the disturbers of the State.
Still more remarkable is his view regarding the importance of the Purusharthas. He says the king who solely devotes himself to Dharma, excluding the claims of Artha and Kāma, is like a man who tills a forest abandoning a ripe corn-field."
It is also remarkable that at the beginning of the Nitiväkyämritam. Somadeva salutes not the Arhat, but the Rajya or the State. On the whole, his outlook is not that of a Jaina theologian, but that of an unbiased thinker with considerable knowledge and experience of the affairs of the State.
As regards the relationship between Somadeva and Kautilya, M. Winternitz in his History of Indian Literature Vol. III," at one place says: "The Nitiväkyämṛitam is in fact strongly dependent upon Kautilya and often agrees with him verbally; several times he merely paraphrases Kautilya and he can outright be considered to be a commentator on the latter". But Winternitz himself seems to say that there was a different kind of relationship between these two authors. For, he says Nītivākyāmṛitam is not like Kautilya's Arthasastra. It is a work of a different type. It is not like the Arthasästra of Kautilya, a practical handbook of politics and economics but it is rather a pedagogical work that contains fine counsel for the king. Winternitz points out two differences between Kautilya and Somadeva. Though both treat the same subject, Kautilya is more political while in Somadeva the moralist tone is more dominant. Another difference according to him is that Somadeva treats many matters in a general way, whereas Kautilya goes into more details especially regarding political practice. U. N. Ghosal agrees with Winternitz and says Somadeva takes more interest in moral maxims than in administrative and military matters."
It is wrong to think that Somadeva merely paraphrases Kautilya or that he can be considered to be a commentator of Kautilya. In Yasastilaka" Yasodhara is said to have studied the Nitisastras of Brihaspati, Šukra, Visalakhsa, Parikshit, Paräsara Bhima, Bhisma, Bharadwaja and others. None of these ancient works is now extant. But there is no doubt that they were available to Somadeva in the tenth century AD. The Manikchandra Jain Granthamāla edition of Nitiväkyämṛitam is a Sanskrit commentary, which is anonymous. In it, many of the Smritis and Nitiśāstras mentioned above are not only quoted, but many extracts are quoted from them and parallel passages to them from the Nitivākyāmṛitam are then cited in it. This fact makes it clear that Somadeva was well read in all the Dharmasastras and Nītiśāstras current in his time and fully utilized them to write his work.
Somadeva's Nitiväkyāmṛitam seems to have become well known to statesmen who lived soon after he wrote. He appears to have become instantly popular. Durgasimha, the Sandhivigrahi in the court of Jayasimha III of the Kalyani Chalukya dynasty wrote his work Punchatantra in Kannada in 1031 AD that is, forty eight years after Somadeva's death. He quotes from Somadeva's Nitiväkyämṛitam with or without acknowledgement in his work. Another Sandhivigrahi, Neminatha, who probably occupied this position under the Silāhāras of Kolhapur in the later half of the twelfth century and who hailed from Kodanapurvadavalli near Belgaum in Karnataka. After retirement, he appears to have settled down in Halebedu or Dorasamudra the capital of Hoyasālas and he wrote a commentary on Nitivākyāmṛitam in Kannada in about 1200 AD. The late K. Bhujabali Sastry found copies of this commentary in the Jaina matha libraries in the Moodabidire and Karkala near Udipi in Karnataka. I was able to get a copy of this commentary from Moodabidire. My friends, late Prof. B. Ramaswamy and Dr. S. H. Ritti and I have