Studies In Umasvati And His Tattvartha Sutra

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

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Studies in Umāsvāti
And,
Prāg-Lokabindusāre sarvākṣara sannipāta paripahitah/ dhrñ-dharaṇārtho dhātus-tad-artha-yāgād-bhavati dharmaḥ Durgati-bhaya-prapāte patantam-abhayakara-durlabha-trāņe/ samyak-carito yaḥ syād-dhārayati tataḥ smrto dharmaḥ//
(śānti Sūri, pp. 183-4) A few other verses quoted in the name of Vācaka' are also encountered in Sānti Sūri's Vștti and in some other sources.19 Some of these, from the point of view of content and style, could be attributed to Umāsvāti; however, they are not always composed in the āryā meter so much favoured by him but in anușubh, a meter he secondarily had employed in his compositions; hence these have not been taken here into major consideration.20 A few other verses that are composed in āryā, which may be likened to Umāsvāti's manner of writing, but could not with confidence be ascribed to any of his aforenoted works, have also been traced.21
The style of what is reflected in all those quoted verses I cited in the main text of this paper, I may repeat, is clearly, indeed genuinely, of Umāsvāti. What is significant, as this survey demonstrates, more number of works of that illustrious author apparently were available till the medieval period to the Svetāmbara writers. A diligent search for further verses/ prose passages or phrases within the hundreds of quotations in Sanskrit encountered in several different classes of the Nirgantha commentarial literature (particularly of the Svetāmbara persuation) may bring to light some more verses attributable to this great writer.22
Verses in the Bhāşya of the
Tattvārthādhigama Sūtra The opening and the closing kārikās of the selfsame sūtra with its bhāsya are too well-known. Siddhasenagani has very briefly commented on most of these verses. After studying the 32 kārikās