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Sauraseni Jaina Scriptures
Dr Raja Ram Jain
Indrabhuti Gautama, the Chief disciple of the 24th and the last Tirthankara, Mahavira (599-527 B C), was the first Ganadhara, who rendered the Dvadasanga vanı (twelve canonical texts) of Mahavira in Sutta-form The Sutta-knowledge was preserved for centuries in the form of Kantha Parampara (oral tradition) Gradually, with the lapse of time, the knowledge decayed and by the time of Acarya Dharasena (85 A D) it was preserved only partially Hence, in order to preserve the remaining knowledge he transmitted the “Purva-Sahitya" (PreMahavira-Sahitya) of Destivadanga (the twelfth Anga) and part of the VyakhyaPrjnaptı-Sutta (the 5th Anga) to his two trusted and intelligent disciples Acarya Puspadanta and Acarya Bhutabalı
The two Acaryas who were distinguished scholars, rendered the knowledge received into 6000 Suttas in between 85-135 AD, which were originally known as Khanda-Siddhanta or Satkhanda-Siddhanta or Paramagma or Agama-Siddhanta and finally as the Satkhandagama (SK) written in the Sauraseni Prakrta language Acarya Padmanandın or Kundakunda (2nd century AD), Acrya Samantabhadra 2nd century AD), Acarya Samakunda (3rd century AD), Acarya Tumbulura (4th century AD) and Acarya Bappadeva (6th to 8th century AD) wrote vast commentaries in about 5 lacs of Slokas (Verses) in different languages intelligible to common people, but these commentaries either were destroyed or are unavailable due to some unfortunate and unknown reasons
In the above chain of commentators the last was Virasena Svamı, who wrote commentary on the Satkhandagama known as "Dhavala" which contains 72,000 Slokas (Verses) Today, only this commentary is available and is published The commentary was named "Dhavala", probably because the writing work was finished on Kartika Trıyodası (Wednesday) of Dhavala-Paksa (Moonlit-fortnight) in the year 737 VS (680 AD) According to the other version Virasena Syami named his commentary as Dhavala on being highly impressed with the devotion of Rastrakuta King Amoghavarsa I who had the title of "Atisaya-Dhavala"
Gunadhara (38 A D) was another Acarya of the time, who was almost the senior contemporary of Acarya Dharasena He possessed partial knowledge of
