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OPERATIONS IN SEARCH OF SANSKRIT MS8.
discovery the only copy known to exist in India. No. 14 of the Phophalia pâ do bhandar collection is a commentary (tippana) on this work of Dharmottara's, by one Mallavâdyâcbârya.
The MS. is dated Samvat 1231=A. D. 1175. Now the name Mallavâdin, Malla the Disputant, has been known to us previously by tradition only, and tradition which has been regarded very sceptically. The Jain legend with regard to him is thus given in the Prabandhachintamani (Ramchandra's edition, p. 273). Once upon a time the Svetâmbara Jains and the Buddhists, calling King Silâditya to preside, and binding themselves by the usual vow that the party worsted in the fight would leave the country, held a great theological tournament. Victory on this occasion lay with the Buddhists: the Svetâmbaras went into exile, and the great figure of Adinath on Mount Satrunjaya was thenceforth worshipped under the style of Buddha. Silâditya's sister's son Malla, was only a youth at the time of these events; and the victorious Buddhists thought it safe not to insist on his exile. Sprung as he was of the warrior caste Malla brooded over the injury done to his faith. He applied himself night and day to study in the hope of confuting in his turn the enemies of the religion he clung to. Once in the middle of the night he heard a voice asking him what food he ate. He looked and saw no speaker, but answered "valla grain." Six months passed, and again the Goddess of Speech, for it was she who had been his visitant, came and said "with what?" Malla remembered, and said simply "with gudaghṛita." Pleased at the faithful memory of the boy Sarasvatî gave him a boon; and he asked for a book which should enable him to overthrow in argument the hated Buddhists. The Goddess gave him (inspired him to write) the Nayachakra. Armed with this Malla sought and obtained from his uncle a renewal of the war of words. He conquered in this fight, and the Svetâmbara faith became again the established religion. Malla was called in consequence Vâdin.
In the Prabhavakacharitra (Klatt, Vienna Oriental Journal, Vol. IV. p. 67) it is stated that Mallavâdin was the author of a Padmacharitra, and a date Vira 884 is assigned to him.
The Patan book therefore restores to his long vacant place in India's literary pantheon a prince and sage who probably dates from
A. D. 358.
