Life of Hemchandracharya

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

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LIFE OF HEMA ANDRA howuver, not improbable, as Devacandra appears to have been a man of no insignificance. Devacandra is of course not mentioned in the lists of teachers. On the other hand, Rājasekhara assumes that he belonged to the Pūrņacandra Gaccha and to the line of Yasobhadra, the Rāṇā of Vatapadra, who was converted by Dattasūri, and that Yaśobhadra's pupil was Pradyumnasūri, the author of many works and his pupil Gunasena was Devacandra's teacher. He adds, moreover, that Devacandra wrote a commentary to Thāna, i. e. the Sthānānga, as also a life of Sāntinātha. The latter statements may be correct. For, Devasūri mentions in the Introduction to his S'āntināthacaritra that it is translated from the great homonymous Prakrit-poem of Devacandra, the teacher of Hemacandra. Rājasekhara's account of Devacandra's school and teacher appears, on the other hand, to be partly incorrect. It is true that Jinamaņdana says exactly the same that Dattasūri of the Kotikagana, the Vajra Sākā and of the Candra Gaccha, had converted the Rāņā Yaśobhadra, and he gives the same line of teachers: Pradyumnasūri, Gunasena, Devacadra. But the Prabhåvakacaritra (See Note 13, verse 14) calls the latter a pupil of Prandyuninasūri and Hemacandra himself says in the Mahāviracarita that he belonged to the Vajrasakhā and to the line of Municandra. In none of his works, known so far, does Hemacandra give the name of his teacher, although ample opportunity should have been offered for the same. It almost appears as if his later relationship with his teacher might not have been of friendly nature. In this respect, an anecdote given by Merutunga could be cited: Devacandra refused to teach his pupil the art of making gold because he had already "ill-digested” other easier sciences and hence was neither worthy nor capable of learning so difficult an art. Whatever be the solution of these difficulties, this much is certain that Devacandra was a learned man who had the qualification to train a pupil like Hemacandra.
In the last years of Somacandra's apprenticeship, the Prabhāvakacaritra ascribes a journey, or rather the plan for a journey, by which the young monk wanted to win the favour of the goddess Brābmī, the patroness of learning, in order to overcome all rivals by her grace. With the permission of his teacher he set out on a tour towards the land of Brāhmi via Tāmalipti in company of other Sädhus well-versed in the Sāstras. He went however, only upto Raivatāvatāra, the sanctuary of Neminātha, where he devoted himself to ascetic practices in Mādhumata Sārtha (?). During the practices, the goddess of speech appeared before him and informed him that he would attain his desire at home. He therefore cancelled his further programme and returned to his teacher. Although in India it be not unusual that a scholar or a poet seeks to attain the Sarasvata mantra, a magis formula, which gives him mastery over speech; and although Hemacandra himself admits unreservedly of his faith in such means in his manual of Poetics, the Alamkāracūdāmani;43 yet one must interpret the above story only as an explicative myth. Indeed, the extra-ordinarily naive geographic conceptions of the author point to this. When he says that Somacandra wanted to travel via Tāmaliptí or Tamluk in Bengal in order to reach Brāhmidesa, i. e. Kāśmir, it is clear that he is confounding the Brāhmidesa with the Brahmadeśa or Burma. Still more absurd is it that Somacandra is supposed to have gone on his journay first to Raivatāvatāra i. c. Junāgadh in Käthiāvād. Later on, Jinamandana detected this absurdity and tried to make the story more credible by an alteration See Note 22).