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(viii) Jinabhadrasüri, the Yugapradhanācārya of Kharatara-gaccha (V. Sam. 15th century) who established the "Baļā Jnānabhaņdār' at Jesalmer.79
(ix) Jinabhadra, the author of Prabandhavali' (1234 A. D.)79a
From the above list, the Jinabhadras listed at numbers one, two, seven and eight are out of question, since the first, seventh and the eighth belong to the Kharatara-gaccha, while the second one belongs to the seventh century of the Vikrama Era. Our author could not obviously be identical with Jinabhadra Maladhārī, nor with Jinabhadrasuri Yugapradhana listed at numbers three and five, since the former belonged to a different gaccha, while the latter was his predecessor. Only the ones listed at numbers four and six might or might not have been identical with our author, although they were definitely contemporaries. So also was the first Jinabhadra noticed by Dr. B. J. Sandesara in his MVSM. But the inadequacy of data at our disposal cannot allow us to draw a definite conclusion.
Thus, after all this discussion we find that in the present state of our data it is quite impossible to fix the definite identifications of the author and his preceptors, except Municandrasüri. The twelth and the thirteenth centuries were an age of defection in the history of Jain monachism in Gujarat since during this period one witnesses the splitting up of the parental Bșhad-gaccha (Vada gaccha) into several sub-gaccbas.80 It is due to this reason that our Jinacandrasūri, his disciple Candraprabhasūri, and the latter's disciple Jinabhadrasūri, the author of the MRA, seem to have ramained unrecorded in any of the Pattāvalis of the sub-gacchas that branched off from the Bịhad-gaccha, to which our author and his preceptors seem to have still attached themselves. Another reason, as has been pointed out by Agama-prabhākara Muni Shri Panyavijayaji,si is that the number of preceptors (gurus), disciples (šişyas) and appointed successors (pattadharas) was very vast in the Bșhad-gaccba, so much so that every author limited himself to mentioning only most important closely affiliated ones only. Consequently, only a marginal picture of the monachical tradition is offered to us, and the identifications of different authors and monks bearing the same name have to be fixed after a careful study of the published and unpublished Grantha-praśastis, Prabandhas, Rāsās, and catalogues of manuscripts and inscriptions. This is quite difficult in the absence
79. PCC., Intro. p. 1. 79a. MVSM, pp. 34, 114. 80. See supra, ft. nt. 44, 81. AMKV, Hindi Intro., p. 14.
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