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Introduction
which is merely another form of Sivakumara, of the Pallava dynasty. He also figures as Yuva Mahārāja, which is also curiously identical with Kumara Mahārāja. Other circumstantial evidences are also favourable. Conjeepuram was the capital of Pallavas who ruled over Thondamandalam or Thondainadu which was looked upon as the land of the learned; its metropolis did attract many Dravidian scholars such as the author of Kural etc.; the kings of Conjeepuram were patrons of learning: since the early centuries of the Christian era upto the 8th century, from Samantabhadra to Akalanka, we hear that Jainism was being propagated round about. that place. It is not improbable, therefore, that the Pallava kings at Conjeepuram, during the first century of this era, were patrons of Jaina religion or were themselves Jainas by faith. Further the body of Mayidavölu grant is in Prakrit dialect, and it is issued by Sivaskandhavarman of Conjeepuram. The use of Siddham in the beginning of the grant and its close similarities with Mathura inscriptions show the Jaina inclinations of the ruler. From various other epigraphical records also it is clear that these kings had Prakrit as their court language. Thus Prof. Chakravarti concludes that Kundakundacārya wrote his Prabhṛtatraya for one Sivakumāra Mahārāja, who was most probably the same as Sivaskandhavarman of the Pallava dynasty.
[p. 14:] PT. JUGALKISHORE'S VIEW ON THE DATE.-Pandit Jugalkishore, in his excellent monograph on Samantabhadra,1 discusses the pros and cons of the various evidences utilised for settling the date of Kundakunda, and weighs the various probabilities with a view that the date of Kundakunda would help him to settle the date of Samantabhadra. The date of Kundakunda given by Paṭṭāvalis he holds to be unsatisfactory, because paṭṭāvalis differ among themselves and often from other pieces of information available from other sources. He, like Premiji, works out the antecedent chronological details of the statement of Indranandi, in his Śrutavatära, that Kundakunda wrote a commentary on the first three sections of Satkhaṇḍagama, and practically concludes that Kundakunda cannot be earlier than 683 after Vira, Le. 156 A.D. incidentally indicating the various descrepancies of paṭṭāvalis. Making possible concessions for the alternative beginnings of Vikrama era, he would concede the earlier limit that Kundakunda should be later than 133 Vikrama samvat, i.e. 76 A.D. Then he discusses the possibility of arriving at the date of Kundakunda on the tradition that Kundakunda wrote for Sivakumara Mahārāja. He indicates that much reliance cannot be put on that tradition as Kundakunda has not said anything to that effect. If the tradition is to be accepted, he favours the identification proposed by Prof. Chakravarti, showing that the date 528 A.D., arrived at by the identification proposed by Pathak, upsets the relative chronology of many Jaina authors, and showing that the interpretation of ta tadanvaya in those inscriptions with the chronological deduction proposed by Pathak is wrong, because even Padmanandi, the teacher of Sakalakirti, of the 15th century A.D., is designated as tad (Kundakunda)-anvaya-dhurina. Pt. Jugalkishore points to the fact that Kundakundanvays is already mentioned in Merkara copper-plates of Saka 388.
13
1 See pp. 158 etc. of his Introduction to the Ed. of Ratna-karaṇḍaka Śrāvakācāra of Samanatabhadra, Vol. 24 of MDJG, Bombay, 1925; a part of the introduction, dealing about Samantabhadra, is also separately issued as 'Svāmi Samantabhadra'.
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