Nyayavatara

Author(s): Satyaranjan Banerjee
Publisher: Sanskrit Book Depot P Ltd

Page 59

APPENDIX A
SIDDHASENA DIVAKARA alias KŞAPANAKA (ABOUT 480-550 A.D.)
[from S. C. Vidyabhuṣaṇa's A History of Indian Logic ]
The first Jaina writer on systematic logic was Siddhasena Divakara. It was he who for the first time laid the foundation of a science called Logic among the Jainas by compiling a treatise called Nyāyāvatāra1 in thirty-two short stanzas.
Siddhasena Divakara is also famous as the author of the Sammatitarka-sūtra which is a work in Prākṛta on general philosophy containing an elaborate discussion on the principles of logic. This author, who belonged to the Svetambara sect, has been mentioned by Pradyumna Sūri (980 A.D.) in his Vicara-sara-prakarana and by Jinasena Sūri in the Adipurana dated 783 A.D.
Siddhasena, who was a pupil of Vṛddha-vadisūri, received the name of Kumudacandra3 at the time of ordination. He is said to have split, by the efficacy of his prayers, the Linga, the Brāhmaṇical symbol of Rudra, in the temple of Mahākāla at Ujjaini, and to have called forth an image of Pārsvanatha by reciting his Kalyāṇa-mandirastava. He is believed by Jainas to have converted Vikramaditya to Jainism 470 years after the nirvana of Mahavira, that is, 57 B.C.4
But Vikramaditya of Ujjaini does not seem to be so old, as he has been identified by scholars with Yasodharma Deva, King of
1 Vide No. 741 in the list of Mss. purchased for the Bombay Government as noticed by Peterson in his 5th Report, p. 289. A manuscript of the Nyāyāvatāra with Vivṛti was procured for me from Bhavanagara, Bombay, by Muni Dharmavijaya and his pupil Śri Indravijaya. The Nyaya-vatāra with commentary and translation edited by Satis Chandra Vidyabhusana is available in Calcutta and Arrah.
2 The verse da (26) etc. quoted from Vicara-sära-prakaraṇa, and noticed by Peterson in his 3rd Report, p. 272, is already quoted in the introduction foot note 1, p. 28.
3
cf. Prabhavakacarita VIII. V. 57.
4 For other particulars about Siddhasena Diväkara see Dr. Klatt's Paṭṭāvalī of the Kharataragaccha in the Indian Antiquary, Vol. XI, Sept. 1882. p. 247. Vide also Dr. R. G. Bhandarkar's report on Sanskrit Mss., during 1883-84, p. 118, 140. Also the Prabandha-cintamani translated by Mr. Tawney in the Bibliotheca Indica series of Calcutta, pp. 10-14.