________________
CRITICAL TIMES
225
Samantabhadra lived in Saka 60 (A.D. 138).1
Credence may be given to the tradition that Samantabhadra lived in the second century A.D., when we examine the pontifical pedigrees of the Jaina gurus as given in the epigraphs ranging from the beginning of the twelfth to the fifteenth century A.D. Thus in a record dated A.D. 1129 we have three names in succession without their relationship being explainod : Bhadrabāhu, Kondakunda, and next to him Samantabhadra, thus showing that in regard to spiritual greatness these three names come one after the other. Ir another record dated A.D. 1163 it is said that in the line of Bhadrabāhu arose Kondakunda, who was also called Padmanandi, Umāsvāti, and Gțdhrapiñcchācārya. His disciple was Balākapiñccha. "In such a line of great ācāryas arose (with praise) Samantabhadra ” after whom came Pūjyapāda. The same is repeated in a later record of A.D. 1398 in which we are told that Kondakunda wrote the Tattvārthasūtra, and that Samantabhadra's disciple Sivakotisūri “ornamented the Tattvārthasūtra”, evidently meaning thereby that he wrote a commentary on that work. Then, again.
1. Bhandarkar, Report on Skt. MSS. for 1883-1884 p. 320. Rice also placed Samantabhadra in the second century A.D. My & Coorg, p. 203. But Narasimhacarya maintained that Samantabhadra may have lived in circa. 400. (Kavicarite, I, p. 4).
2. E. C. II. 67, p. 25. 3. Ibid, 64, p. 17. 4. Ibid, 254, p. 110. If we are to rely upon this inscription,
and there is no reason why we should doubt its authenticitythen, Sivakoti was the earliest Jaina scholar to write a commentary on the Tattvārthasūtra. Hence Prof. Upadhye's remark that Pujyapada-who, as pointed out elsewhere in this treatise, can sometime after Samantabhadra,-- was the earliest Digambara commentator on Tattvārthasūtra (Pravacanasāta. Intr. p. xxi) has to be modified.
