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śramaņa, Vol 59, No. 4/October-December 2008
the contemporary Svetāmbara writers, such as Muni Kalyāņa Vijaya, Pt. Sukhlal Sanghvi, Pt. Dalsukh Malvania and K.K. Dixit place Kundakunda posterior to Umāsvāti (375-400 AD) and Siddhasena Divākara (active first half of 5th Century AD)." (Upadhye puts the date of Siddhasena between 505-609 AD, i.e. in the 6th Century.)
Of all the Śvetāmbara Jaina scholars, M.A. Dhaky alone is bent on denigrating to the maximum the image of Kundakunda by calling his teachings “unacceptable”,34 and pushing his date "to the latter half of the eighth Century." His main arguments in this regard and against fixing Kundakunda's date at the beginning of the Christian era are:
(1) Why he (Kundakunda) “is not referred to ...anywhere overtly, clearly, or even indirectly implied in the writings of · Digambara Jaina thinkers, epistemologists, and scholiasts like Svāmī
Samantabhadra (active c. AD 575-625), Pūjyapāda Devanandī (active c. AD. 635-685), and Bhatta Akalankadeva c. AD 720-780), the trio held in the highest esteem in the Digambara Church.'
In this regard it may be said that there are several misstatements in Dhaky's assertion:
(a) Samantabhadra flourished in the 2nd Century A.D. and Pūjyapāda lived earlier than the last quarter of the 5th Century A.D. and most probably in 4th-5th Century A.D."
(b) Pujyapāda is greatly indebted to Kundakunda for the concept of three selves: the external self or bahirātmā (one engrossed in sensual pleasures), inner self or antarātmā (one having self-discipline, righteousness, detachment, etc.), and paramātmā, (i.e. supreme soul or pure self), which Dhaky says “is totally unknown in Jaina [Śvetāmbara) writings". 38 This indeed was one of the great spiritual insights given by Kundakunda to the world. But proceeding from his mistaken assumption that Kundakunda flourished in the 8th Century AD. Dhaky thinks that Kundakunda "possibly took these terms" from Pujyapāda, who in turn must have adopted these terms from
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