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IN THE BOMBAY CIRCLE.
5
The Upamitabhavapra. panchakatha of Siddharshi.
No. 26 of the Pattan books is a copy of the Upamitabhavaprapanchakatha of Siddharshi, which contains the prasasti already given, Third Report, Appendix, p. 146, but in a more correct form. The MS. is dated Samvat 1294, A.D. 1238. The account Siddha gives here of himself agrees in the main with the account Klatt gives, in the paper just now referred to, from the Prabhavakacharitra. In particular it is stated in both places that it was Gargarshi who initiated Siddha. In this colophon Siddha states that Haribhadra composed his Lalitavistara for Siddha's benefit. Klatt takes this to mean that Siddha, who long wavered between Buddhism and Jainism, found conviction on reading this book by a long deceased author. But that is certainly not the natural meaning of Siddha's own words. I cannot say how far Klatt is right in saying that the context of the corresponding passage in the Prabhavakacharitra lends itself to the interpretation he favours. Haribhadra is said to have died in Samvat 585. It appears to me that it has been too hastily taken for granted that the date Siddha gives for the composition of his Upamitibhavaprapanchakathâ is a Vikrama date. Take it to be a Vîra date and the whole difficulty of the reference to Haribhadra vanishes, for the book then goes back to Samvat 592, only seven years after Haribhadra's death. This speculation has an important bearing on a date it is of even more importance to know, that namely of the poet Mâgha, the author of the 'Sisupâlavadha. As against Jacobi, who (Vienna Oriental Journal, Vol. III. p. 121) from internal evidence places Mâgha after Bhâravi (not later than A.D. 634) and before Subandhu and Bâna, Klatt, assuming that Siddha's date is Samvat 962, places his cousin Mâgha at the same late time. Durgaprasâda has already shown that this is impossible, inasmuch as Mâgha is quoted by Anandavardhana (flourished under Avantivarman 855-884). But if Siddha's date is not a Vikrama date, there is a strong probability, in the case of so famous a Jain writer, of its being a Vîra date. And in that case we have good reason for placing Mâgha in the end of the sixth of the Vikrama centuries, A.D. 536. This gives us also a terminus ad quem for Bhâravi a hundred years earlier than our present earliest date. Of the fact that Siddha and Mâgha were cousins there appears to be no reasonable doubt. Their common grandfather was Suprabhadeva, minister of the king of the. time of 'Srîmâla in Gurjaradesa. Suprabhadeva
