Mahavira and his Teaching

Author(s): C C Shah, Rishabhdas Ranka, Dalsukh Malvania
Publisher: Bhagwan Mahavir 2500th Nirvan Mahotsava Samiti

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LUDWIK STERNBACH
existed also two Jaina authors by the name of Amitagati. To Amitagati 1 was attributed the Yogasāra and the Sāmayikapāthal and to Amitagati II. all the other works known to be written by Amitagati. 11.2. Amitagati lived in the tenth century A.D. His Subhāsitaratna-samdoha (SRS.) is one of the rare works of Sanskrit literature which is clearly dated. In the colophon, as already H. T. Colebrooke2 pointed out, the "poem entitled Subhāşitaratna-samdoha by a Jaina author named Amitagati is dated in the year 1050 from the death of Vikramaditya in the reign of Muñja who was uncle and predecessor of Raja Bhoja". The date Vikrama 1050 is equal to A.D. 993-994. This date is generally accepted as the date of SRS. and is universally used in Indian chronology as one of the certain dates for the reign of Muñja (of Dhārā)3. 11.3. Amitagati is, among others also the author of the Yoga sār a4 and of the Dharma pariksās. The first of these works is a didactic work, being a collection of didactic precepts of the Digambara Jainas written in 9 chapters in simple śloka-s; the second is a polemical work; although intervowen with fables it is a diatribe against Brahmanism and Brahmanical ethics, often ruthlessly expressed. Amitagati, wrote also the 1.
Jarna Siddhanta Bhāskara 7.1, pp. 29-36, Introduction, p. 71, fn. 3 of the edition of the Paramarthaprakāśa; in Rayacandra Jaina Šāstramāla 10. Miscellaneous Essays, Vol. II, London 1873, p. 48. COLEBROOKE's Miscellaneous Essays, p. 416, C. MABEL DUFF, The Chronology of India, Westminister 1899; R G BHANDARKAR, Miscellaneous Notes III in Transactions of the IX International Congress of Orientalists, London 1893, p. 475; Nilakantha Janārdan Kırtane's on Three Mälwa Inscriptions in Indian Antiquary (1877) 6; p. 51; G. BÜHLER, The Udepur Prasasti of the King of Malwa in Epigraphica Indica I. 228. Published in Sanātana Jaina Granthamāla No. 16. CF N MIRONOW, Dre Dharmapariksa des Amitagatz Ein Beitrag zur Litteratur und Religionsgeschichte des Indischen Mittelaters., Inaugural-Dissertation, Leipzig 1903; R. G. BHANDARKAR, Report 1884-87, pp. 13 sqq and 134 sqq The Dharmapariksa was written in A.D. 1013