Life of Hemchandracharya

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

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LIFE OF HËMACANDRA sent by the king of Dāhala and that it was he who, on another occasion, had at once composed the second half of a Prakrit-Dodhaka, the first half of which had been sent for Jayasimha's poets as samasyā by the king of Sapädalakşa. The Sanskrit-verse is the well-known riddle with the word hāra. It belongs to the favourite passages with which the Pandits amuse themselves in their sabhās and it is so easy that great scholarship is not needed for its solution.49
The third story has quite a different character. Once, says Merutunga, Siddharāja who was seeking the right path to deliverance, ordered an inquiry into the teachings of all sects of all nations. The result was unsatisfactory. Every teacher praised his own faith and censured all the other systems. The king was, therefore, as if seated on a "swing of doubt” and turned finally to Hemacandra in order to know what the proper attitude should be in such circumstances. Hemacandra gave him his advice in the form of a parable, common in the Purāņas. He said, there lived a merchant, ages ago, who neglected his own wife and gave away all his property to a courtesan. His wife tried zealously to win back the love of her husband and inquired after all means of magic with which to accomplish her end. Thereupon a Gauda promised her "to get her husband tied down to her with a bridle" and gave her some medicine with instructions to mix the same in the food. After some days, when the woman put this advice into practice, her husba ft was turned into a bull. Thereupon the whole world rebuked her, and she fell into deep despondency for she did not know how to undo the effect of her unholy action. Once she took her metamorphosed husband to the pasture for grazing. She sat in the shade of a tree, loudly weeping over her fate. In the meanwhile, she heard a conversation which was being carried on tetween Siva and his wife Parvati in a rimāna, flying above in the air. Pārvati asked about the cause of the sorrows of the shepherdess and Siva told her all about it. He also added that a healing herb grew in the shade of that very tree, which was capable of metamorphosing the bull back into his own original form. As the kind of the creeper was not specifically designated, the woman gathered up all that grew under the shade of the tree and threw it before the bull. He ate it, and became a man again. Now, just as the unknown creeper, thus concluded Hemacandra, proved itself to be of a healing virtue, even so also a believing reverence for all religions leads one to salvation, even though one may not know which of them really deserves reverence. From that time the king respected all sects. Jinamaņdana" gives another independent version of the story which is also much better in style. The same author also connects two more little anecdotes with this one. The one speaks of a second conversation over the same question, 'during which Hemacandra recommended to the king the so-called "common duties” such as generosity to worthy men, becoming behaviour towards venerable persons, kind-heartedness towards all beings etc., and declared in the words of the Mahābhārata that those who were devoutly pious in their conduct and not those inclined to self-castigation, nor yet the learned, were of real worth. According to the other anecdote, Hemacandra enlightened the king when the latter had a temple of Siva and another of Mahāvīra built in Siddhapura, that the latter divinity was even greater than the former. For, though Siva bears the moon on his forehead, all the nine planets may be seen at Mahāvīra's feet. Those who were well-versed in architecture corroborated