Life of Hemchandracharya

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

Page 72

OHAPTER IX.-STORIES ABOUT HEMACANDRA AND KUMĀRAPĀLA 53 before the school of his enemy. As Anã and other princes were one day learning the Yogas'āstra there, Vāmarāśi praised this work in a verse "in all sincerity." Hemacandra was therefore reconciled and granted him a vrtti, double as large as the earlier one had been. The story about Brhaspati probably presents the relationship of this man to Hemacandra in a more proper light than the legend, given above (p. 29), according to which the Saiva monk and the Jaina monk were good friends.
By far the greatest number of the legends given in the Prabandhas describes, however, Hemacandra's supernatural powers, his gift of prophecy, his knowledge of the remotest past, his hold over evil spirits and the Brahmanic deities hostile to Jainism. Already in the Prabhāvakacaritra, a prophecy of Hemacandra's is mentioned, which was literally fulfilled. The king of Kalyāņa-kataka, it is said, who had received information from his spies that Kumāra pāla had become a Jaina and was therefore powerless, gathered a big army with a view to conquering Gujarat. Full of anxiety, Kumārapāla went to Hemacaudra and inquired whether he would be defeated by this enemy. Hemacandra consoled him by saying that the protecting deities of the Jaina-doctrine were keeping watch over Gujarat, and that the enemy would die on the seventh day. In reality, the spies brought Kumārapāla soon afterwards the news that the prophecy had come true. Both Merutunga and Jinamaņdana also have this story. In their version the hostile king is, however, Karņa, the ruler of Dāhala or Tivar in the Central Provinces. They also state how he died, and describe that he was asleep on his elephant during a nocturnal march, when his golden necklace got caught in a banyan tree, and he was strangled to death. Karņa of Dāhala ruled about hundred years before Kumārapāla and was, as Merutunga rightly points out elsewhere, a contemporary of Bhimadeva 1.98
A second proof of his prophetic gift, according to Merutunga, Hemacandra furnished when he described his story of a previous birth to the king. Rājasekhara and Jinamaņdana give the same in extenso and add thereto that Hemacandra himself did not describe it but that he made Vidyādevīs reveal themselves in Siddhapura for the purpose. The king came to know thereby the cause of his enmity with Jayasimha and was, as Jinamaņdana says, so very much surprised at the wisdom of his teacher that he conferred upon him the title of Kalikālasarvajña, “the omniscient of the Kali-yuga.988 It is not at all improbable that Hemacandra claimed to have told the king about his fate in the previous life, as the Jaina-monks have often done so in similar circumstances. It is another question whether the version before us really reflects the Pūrvavrttānta described by Hemacandra.
Absolutely absurd but characteristic of the gradual development of the legends is the third story related by Jinamandana, attributing to Hemacandra the gift of clairvoyance. Once, so the story goes, Hemacandra was sitting with the king and the Saivaascetic Devabodhi and was explaining the holy scriptures. Suddenly he stopped and screamed a cry of woe. Devabodhi rubbed his hands and said: “That does not matter a bit I" Then the devotional lesson was resumed. When Hemacandra had finished it, Kumārapāla asked him what had been the matter with him and Devabodhi. Thereupon the monk replied: "O King, I saw that in the temple of Candraprabha in Devapattana