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Jain Education I
say definitely whether any other commentaries on this work were written, yet it is certain that there was at least one brhad-vrtti in this commentator's time. That the present vṛtti is based on that one is clearly stated in prasasti sloka no. 3. A Prasama-Rati with commentary was formerly published by some other public institution. The editor of the work, it seems, believes his commentary to be the one written by Śri Haribhadra Suri. But it is not the same. It is a vṛtti by some unknown author. I think that it is not the brhad-vrtti, for it is neither longer than this laghu-vrtti, nor tougher. Hence it is clear that the commentator is not the well-known Sri Haribhadra Suri, who attracted one thousand four hundred and forty four Buddha monks with a desire of hurling them into seething flames, but who, becoming aware of his fault through an indirect hint of a nun Mahattara gave up the idea, and instead composed an equal number of works by way of repentence. He has expressed his reverence towards that benign nun by calling himself "the son of Yakini Mahattara", and has shown his deep berevement resulting from the tragic and trecherous death of his two pupils at the hand of Baudhas by adding a single word "viraha"-a word most intensely suggestive of his deep-seated feeling at the end of each of his work. The fact that these two distinguishing marks are absent in the above-mentioned commentary, makes it clear that its author Haribhadra Suri is the same as the pupil of Sri Devasuri of the Brhad-gaccha, and not the other.
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