Nyayavatara and Nayakarnika

Author(s): Siddhasena Divakar, Vinayvijay, A N Upadhye
Publisher: Jain Sahitya Vikas Mandal

Page 109

INTRODUCTION
SIDDHA SENA DIVĀKARA, THE AUTHOR OF NYĀYÁVATĀRA: Logic was mixed up with metaphysics and religion in the ancient writing of the Jainas as in those of other sects in India. The first Jaina writer on Pure Logic appears to have been Siddha Sena Divākara. It was he who, for the first time among the Jainas, distinguished logic from the cognate branches of learning by composing a metrical work called Nyāyāvatāral on Logic in thirty-two stanzas.
Siddha Sena Divākara is the famous author of the Sammatitarka-sūtra, which is a Prāksta work on philosophy, containing an elaborate discussion on the principles of logic. This author, who belonged to the Svetāmbara (the white-robed) sect, has been mentioned by Pradyumna Sūri (1000 A.D.) in his Vicāra-sāra-prakaraña.2
This famous logician, who was a pupil of Viddhavādi Sūri, received the name of Kumuda-candra3 at the time of his ordination. He is said to have split, by the efficacy of his prayers, the Linga (Brahmanical symbol) of Rudra in the temple of Mahākāla at Ujjaini, and to have called forth an image of Pārsvanātha by reciting his Kalyāna-mandira-stava. He is believed to have converted king Vikramāditya to Jainism, 470 years after the Nirvāṇa of Mahāvīra.4 The Jainas believe that he was the spiritual tutor of that famous king, as is evident from the Kumārapāla-caritra and other works.
1A manuscript of the Nyāyāvatāra by Siddha Sena Divākara, together with its commentary called Nyāyāvatāra-vivrti, was kindly procured for me irom Bhavanagara, Bombay, by Venerable Dharmavijaya and his pupil, Indravijaya. For further information about this work, see a notice of it in PETERSON'S Fifth Report on Sanskrit MSS., p. 289. The notes, incorporated in this paper for the elucidution of the translation, are all based on the Nyāyāvatāra-vivrt:.
2पंचेव य वरिससए सिद्धसेणदिवायरो य जयपयडो।
छच्चसए वीसहिए सक्कथुऊ अज्जरक्खिपहू ॥ १६ ॥ (Vicāra-sāra-prakarana, noticed by PETERSON in his Third Report, p. 272). 3 Cf. Prabhāvakacarita VIII, V. 57.
4 See KLAIT's Pattāvali of the Kharatara Gaccha in the Indian Antiquary, Vol. XI, Sept. 1882, p. 247.