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श्री जिनकीर्तिहरिकृत पद्माषामय 'पंचजिनस्तवन' *
तथा
श्री जयसुन्दरमूरिकृत अष्टभाषामय 'श्री नेमिजिनेश्वर संस्तव'
Introduction
I
Both Brahmanical and Jaina religious literatures are replete with 'stotras and stavanas' --hymns in praise of deities. They are mostly of moderate length, which helps devotees to memorize them and recite them at their prayers. They are composed in a style which is easy, avoids all linguistic intricacies and is sweetly melodious. That helps in creating a peaceful and devotional atmosphere. Their main purpose is not to create an imposing philosophical tract, but to give to devotees small lyrical poems, extolling the great prowess, abounding Kindness and limitless knowledge of the Lord. Several Brahmanical stotras' of Sri Sankarācā rya, and Jain 'stavanas' are of this kind.
Sometimes, however, in composing an epic poem the poet is unable to resist the desire to show his vast grammatical erudition as in 'Bhattikavya' or 'Dvyasrayakavya'. This tendency is sometimes manifest in small 'stavanas' also, which, however, renders them difficult to comprehend by a lay reader. Such 'stavanas' are very rare only a few have been traced so far and they make a deliberate attempt to display their mastery over the Sanskrit and Prakrit languages. They compose the first verse in Sanskrit, the next one in (general) Prakrit, and the succeeding ones in Sauraseni, Magadhi, Paisact, (sometimes in Calika Paisaci also), and Apabhramia, in that order.
The Catalogues of Jaina Manuscripts list a few such stavanas'hardly 3 or 4 but my assiduous attempts to trace them were not succe. ssful. By a sheer chance, while searching for old Gujarati, and Sanskrit and Prakrit MSS for my research studies under the Springer Research Endowment of the Bombay University, I chanced upon in a Jaina Jñanabhandara MSS of a stavana, which extolled the greatness of five Tirthankaras' in six languages (41), as outlined above. It was written
Being the fifth research study based on rare Mss meterial, prepared under the auspices of the Springer Research Endowment of the Bombay University.
