________________
INTRODUCTION.
XVII
of Upamitibhava-prapanca-kathā (906 A. D.) calls Haribhadra as his dharmaa prabodha-karo guruh; but it is proved by reliable evidences that they were not even contemporaries, Haribhadra having lived before the last quarter of the 8th century." To take another instance, Jayasena, the author of Pratisthāpātha, calls himself as Kundakundāgra-s'isya,a but from the scarcity of old Mss., from the contents and language of that work, and also from the absence of any early tradition to that effect that, he was a contemporary of Kundakunda, one is forced to take Jayasena as the paramparā-s'isya of Kundakunda of venerable name. There are, however, circumstantial evidences why Kundakunda might have been tempted to call himself as the s'isya of Bhadrabāhu. Bhadrabāhu was the great leader of a sangha, which he led to the South for its physical, moral and spiritual welfare. After the demise of Bhadrabāhu his pupils and grand-pupils might have always looked upon him as the greatest teacher; and especially in the South the ascetic community, being isolated, might have inherited all the religious knowledge ultimately from the great teacher Bhadrabāhu. So it is no wonder, if Kundakunda, who was at the head of an isolated ascetic group in the distant South and who always remembered with reverence that whatever knowledge he had inherited was ultimately traceable to Bhadrabāhu, called himself as the s'isya i. e. the traditional pupil of Bhadrabāhu in his works which are more of a compilatory character based on hereditory instruction than original compositions. But it may be asked why not take Kundakunda as the direct disciple of Bhadrabāhu Srutakevalin and put him in the 3rd century B. C. There are various difficulties: Kundakunda, as, in that case, we might expect, does not figure in the lists of Angadhārins; the word s'isya is not enough to lead us to that conclusion, because, as shown above, it could be used in the sense of a paramparā-s'isya; I am not aware of any piece of Jaina tradition, legendary or literary, which would give even the slightest support to put Kundakunda as the contemporary of Bhadrabāhu S'rutakevalin; and the traditions, as they are available, go against this date of 3rd century B. C.
KUNDAKUNDA'S AUTHORSHIP OF SATKHAŅDĀGAMA-TĪKĀ DISCUSSED.With regard to the tradition, that Padmanandi of Kundakundapura received the knowledge of twofold Siddhānta and wrote a commentary on the three ✓ sections of the Şatichandāgama, two legitimate questions can be raised :
Nther this Padmanandi of Kundakundapura is the same as our Kundaa secondly, whether Padmanandi of Kundakundapura has really
B ommentary on a part of the Șatichandāgama. The validity of the irtis , based on this tradition, that Kundakunda cannot be earlier than 683 years after Vīra, if not 770 years after Vīra after assigning some years for the
1 Jaina Sähatya Sams'odhaka, Vol. I, p. 21 etc.; Dr. Jacobi's Introduction to Samarāiccalaha
in Bibl. Ind. 1926. 2 Vasubindu Pratışthā-pätha Ed. Calcutta, 1925; the pras'asti, is also quoted in the Intro.
duotion (p. 9) of Samayaprābhrtam, Benares, 1914; for other instances where s'isya means
paramparu-s'isya gee Annals of the B. O, R. I., Vol. XV, pp. 84-85. 3 S'rutūvatára, verses 160-61 etc,
