Life of Hemchandracharya

Author(s): Manilal Patel
Publisher: Singhi Jain Shastra Shiksha Pith Mumbai

Page 28

CHAPTER II.-HEMACANDRA'S YOUTH the belief of the orthodox Indian who expects eternal happiness in heaven by the regular performance of sacrifices offered to the manes by his male successor and who, therefore, regards as the greatest ill-luck the untiinely entrance of the latter into the holy order. Little as these viewpoints agree with Jainism, they are not seldom found among the Jaina laymen who, even though they do not perform sacrifices offered to the manes, still do share orthodox Indians' feelings for their male offspring. Similarly, there is no reason to doubt the statement that Udayana intervened between the monk and Cāciga, Udayana is certainly a historical personality. He was a Srimāli Vāņiā who emigrated into Gujarat from Srīmāl or Bhinmal in Mārvād. He is supposed to have settled down first of all in the city of Karņāvati, which took, according to K. Forbes, the place of modern Ahmedabad. Soon afterwards, he was appointed Mantrin or royal counsel in Stambhatirtha by Siddharāja-Jayasimha and probably occupied the post of a Civil Governor in that city.18 He is referred to repeatedly in Hemacandra's biography. Also the short remark in the Prabhāvakacaritra that the famous Udayana had performed the ceremony of Căngadeva's ordination in Cambay, points to the fact that Merutunga was correct in representing Udayana as Devacandra's patron. If this is so, then we have also a solution of the contradictions in both the oldest sources regarding Căngadeva's age at the time of his ordination and regarding the city where it took place. As regards the first point, Merutunga, and as regards the second point, the Prabhāvakacaritra, is in the right. For, it is in itself improbable that Cangadeva was ordained to become a monk in his fifth year, in V. S. 1150. This becomes quite unbelievable when we are told that Udayana at that time was already a royal counsel or was living in Cambay, because the king Jayasimha, in whose reign he emigrated into Gujarat, ascended the throne only in the Vikrama year 1150. Consequently Merutunga's date for the ordination,-the eighth or ninth year of his life, according to Jinamaņdana, the Vikrama year 1154-has decidedly an advantage. On the other hand, the place where the ceremony was performed, must be Cambay and not Karņāvati. In addition, it may be adduced that the Prabhāvakacaritra further remarks that Kumārapāla, after his conversion had a Dikşāvihāra, i. e. a temple with a monastery, built in Cambay, in memory of Hemacandra's ordination. Merutunga agrees with this fact, despite his earlier contradictory statement."
The sources supply us with little information regarding the next twelve years of the life of Hemacandra, or more properly Somacandra, which he spent as a student and servant of his Guru. Definite statements are to be found only in the Prabhāvakacaritra, There it is stated that he studied Logic and Dialectics as well as Grammar and Poetics and that he mastered these subjects at once on account of the power of his intelligence "which shone clear and pure as light”. It is of course in itself clear that Somacandra learnt these branches of Brahmanical lore only as a supplement to the theology of the Jainag. For, his training as a teacher and preacher of the Jaina-faith necessitated, naturally, above all, intimate knowledge of the Prakrit-dialect in which the Jaina-sūtras are written, as also a thorough study of the latter, of their commentaries and of other scriptures related thereto. His later scholarly attainments show that the statement of the Prabhāvakacaritra as to his capacities is right and that he must indeed have possessed more than ordinary power of intellect. There is no mention as to whether Devacandra alone instructed him or whether he had other teachers as well. The first assumption is,