Life of Hemchandracharya

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

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LIFE OF HEMACANDRA
difference of accentuation, and all of them are diminutives 'of the Sanskrit name Karka. They designate without doubt one and the same personality. Devasüri, the spiritual teacher of Gunacandra is probably the famous Jaina-bishop, already mentioned, who in V. S. 1181 held a debate with Kumudacandra and died in V. S. 1226. If one agrees to this, then the statements of Gupacandra seem to confirm those in the Prabhavakacaritra. On another point, namely, the mention of the period at which Hemacandra completed his work, the statements of the Prabandhas are to be rectified. The Prabhavakacaritra does not, it is true, say anything in detail about this but suggests that the Grammar was composed within a short space of time. Merutunga, on the other hand, opines boldly that it was written in one single year. This is simply an impossibility and, moreover, is contradicted by a remark in stanza 23 of the Prasasti. There Hemacandra mentions that Jayasimha has celebrated a festival of pilgrimage (ar a: 1). The Deyasrayakavya speaks only of a single pilgrimage of the king to Devapattana and Girnär, which seems to have taken place in the last year of his rule (See Note 28). Tho Prasasti must, therefore, have been written after this pilgrimage and, as it must only have been written after the completion of the Grammar, the latter (the Grammar) also should have been finished after this time. Between the return from Mälvä and the end of the pilgrimage, two or three years might have passed according to the statements of the Deyasraya. As the former falls, according to the above arguments, in the Vikrama year 1194, then the Grammar must have been ready, at the earliest, towards the end of the Vikramayear 1197.
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The success of his Grammar appears to have induced Hemacandra to extend further the scope of his work and to write a number of handbooks which should give the students of Sanskrit composition-and more particularly of the poetics-complete guidance to correct and eloquent expression. This endeavour led to the compilation of a number of Sanskrit-lexica and textbooks of rhetoric and matrics, as well as of a formal artistic. poem meant for illustrating the grammatical rules. This poem is Deyds'rayamahäkävya which contains the history of the Caulukya princes. The series of these works opened with a homonymie lexicon, the Abhidhanacintamani or Namamala, by name. Then followed the synonymie lexicon, the Anekarthasarhgraha; thereafter the manual of poetics, the Alamkaracudamani; and lastly the Chandonus'dsana, the Metrics. This order is chiefly fixed by the statements given in the above-named works. With reference to the first two, the Prabhavakacaritra (Note 31, verse 98) says that they were completed simultaneously with the Grammar. There is little possibility in this, as the composition of the Grammar, its appendices and commentaries would have been quite sufficient work for that short period, even if Hemacandra, as is very usual in India, took the help of his pupils while compiling the commentaries and even if he had made preparations for his work earlier. The Grammar does not, it is true, contain 125,000 slokas, as Merutunga would have us believe. But including the commentaries and the appendices which, in their turn, have commentaries, it has something like 20,000 to 30,000 slokas. It might, however, be right that both of the Kogas were completed before Jayasimha's death. That none of them contains a dedication or other usual characteristic to prove that the work was written at the king's command, is no obstacle here. Hemacandra seems to have