Life of Hemchandracharya

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

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LIFE OF HEMACANDRA remember that even a thorough examination into the old libraries of Cambay, Jesalmir and Anhilvād has not as yet given rise to a claim of any more books than those mentioned in the list of the Prabhūvakacaritra.
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Hemacandra's educational work seems to have been no less extonded than his literary activities. His oldest and most prominent pupil was the above-mentioned (p. 19). one-eyed Rāmacandra. The Prabandhas state about him that he had written one hundred works. Recently two dramas by this man have been discovered, viz. Raghuvilāpa, and Nirbhayabhima. In the signature to the latter drama, Rāmacandru qualifies himself as a s'ataprabandhakartr, "author of hundred works". Besides him, the Prabandhas name at various places Guņacandra, Yasascandra, Bālacandra and Udayacandra, the iast of whom is also mentioned in the Colophon of the Commentary on the Brhadvrtti of the Grammar (Note 34). The Pras'asti of the Commentary on the Anekārthakoşa proves, as has been already shown, the existence of a sixth pupil, Mahendra by name, and the Kumāravihārapras'asti informs us of a seventh one, named Vardhamānagaņin. The modern tradition is naturally not satisfied with such a modest number. Even at present they exhibit in Anhilvād a stone, stained with ink, upon which Hemacandra's asana is supposed to have been placed. One hundred pupils, so say the Jainas, surrounded him daily and wrote down the works which their Guru dictated to them.