Story Of Rama In Jain Literature

Author(s): V M Kulkarni
Publisher: Saraswati Pustak Bhandar

Page 69

(B. PAUMACARIYA: A STUDY
THE DATE OF VIMALASUR
In the subscription to the Paumacariya Vima asu gives the date o the comp.e tion of the work as 30 AV Two different dates are given or the year o Nirvana of Maha 1a (1) The traitio al date, namely B.C an. 1) the cate fixed by Jacobi, viz.. 47 BC They indicate two iff rent date of the completion of t Paumacariya. VIZ., 4 A.D and 64 A.D. Tat is to say, according to poet Vimalasuri's own statement the Paumacariya was written in the first century A.D."
Jaco however, holds that the Paumaeariya was a much late age. In nis paper called "Sonic ancient Jain Works" he observes. "As it (the Paumacariya gives a lagna in which some plants are given under their Greek names the book, for example, must have been written after Greek astrology had been adopted by the Hindus, and that was not be:ore the 3rd century A.D. Therefore unless the passage which contains the lagna is a later audition the cook itsel: may be placed in the 3rd century AD or some what later." In another place he speaks of its age
1
पंचेव य वाससया, वीरे सिद्धिमु गए,
दुसमाए तीसवरिससंजुत्ता ।
तओ निबद्ध इमं चरियं ॥ XVII. 103
2 Leumann consider, the date 4 A.D. as unassailable (Winternit:: A History of Indian Literature. Vol. I, p. 514, f.n. 1, and Vol. II p. 478, f.n.). Winternitz accepts 64 A.D. as the date of the composition of the Paumacariya (Ibid, Vol. 1, pp, 513. 514 with f.n. 1, and Vol. II, p. 477 with f.n. 3. p. 478 and p. 479). Pandit Hargovind Das Sheth assigns this work to the first century A.D. (Paia-Sadda-mahaunavo. Vol. IV, Introduction. p. 13), Pandit Premi accepts the date given by Vimalasuri as correct (Jain Sahitya Aura Itihasa, revised edition 1956' p. 91). Dr. Jyotiprasad Jain appears to, be in favour of the date as recorded by the poet himself (Srimad Rajendrasuri Smaraka Granth Vimalarya Aura Unaka Paumacariyam, pp. 444-445). Prof. C. V. Abhyankar refutes some of the arguments against an eary date for the poet: The occurrence of words like Dinara. Surunga and the like which betray the Roman and the Greek influence on India "can at the most make us disinclined to put a writer (who uses these words) before the beginning of the Christian era". The astronomical date are probably not genuine. The argument based on the influence of later poets and playwrights on Vimalasuri he rebuts thus: "The descriptions of the seasons, water-sports, hells, and amorous gestures Lave been more or less conventional ones, ever since the time of the earliest Indian epics, and similarity of thought and expession in this matter can never be a criterion for the fixing of the dates of any two writers whose writings show much resemblance in those matters". On the strength of the primitive language, archaic forms and the old matters." On the stren of the old metres he assigns the work to the first century A. D. (Forward to Pama-Cariyam (Chs. 27-28, edited by Sri S. C
Upadhyaya, Ahmedabad, 1934).
3 Modern Reivw, December 1914.
Encyclopaed'a of Religion and Ethics, Vol. VII, p. 467,