Studies In Umasvati And His Tattvartha Sutra

Author(s): G C Tripathi, Ashokkumar Singh
Publisher: Bhogilal Laherchand Institute of Indology

Page 11

The Works of Vācaka Umāsvāti
M. A. DHAKY
The medieval svetāmbara writers credit Umāsvāti to have composed some 500 works," figure that doubtless seems highly inflated from the standpoint of practicality.2 This numerical exaggeration palpably stemmed from the lofty esteem in which the author was held. He, in actuality, may have composed a fairly large number of works, understandably though nowhere even remotely close to the phenomenally high figure '500'.
Of his works, the Sabhāsya-Tattvārthādhigamasūtra, the Praśamaratiprakaraṇa, and the Kșetrasamāsa—better known as the Jambūdvīpasamāsa-are for long available and published, the first two through several different editions. I am of course aware that the authorship, and (especially in the first case), also the author's sectarial affiliation is in dispute. Controversies were vehemently raised and raked on purposethough at this distance in time they seem needless, puerile, partisan, and biased-in some quarters to assert their own convictions that were based on a few minor and superficial textual discrepancies in the text of the bhāsya and that of the Sūtra proper of the Tattvārthadhigama and the small divergencies from the Tattvārthādhigama noticeable in the Praśamaratiprakarana.4 The results of my detailed investigations, which have been intermittently underway for the past two decades,