Studies In Umasvati And His Tattvartha Sutra

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

Page 168

158 Studies in Umāsvāti Āryadeva, however is apparently a totally unknown entity in the entire corpus of knowledge on the patriarchs and pontiffs, friars and monks, of all known sects of the Nirgrantha religion in Karnataka as well as in the northern India. Though he may perhaps have flourished in southern India, we virtually know nothing about him: (A Nirgrantha ascetic Āriyadeva figures in the inscriptions of Tamilnadu; but he is a medieval person). No modern writer predictably therefore has taken these last two inscriptional notices seriously. Their value is limited to the fact that the first is the earliest epigraphical reference to the Tattvārthasūtra, and the second possibly refers to it implicitly [Dhaky: Umāsvāti in Epigraphical and literary tradition: Jain Journal: xxx 1-2: Octo 1996: 52].
There are three works in Kannada language bearing the same name of Cūdāmaņi: 1. Cūdāmaņi, the head - jewel, alias Tattvārtha-mahāśāstra
Vyākhyāna, was the earliest Kannada commentary on Tattvārthasūtra. Bha Akalanka (1604), an erudite scholar and grammarian, has authored Šabdānuśāsana, a Kannada grammar written in Sanskrit langauge; speaking of the potentiality of the Kannada language, Bha-Akalanka says: Nor is Karnataka a language unused for scientific purposes. For, in it was written the great work called Cūdāmaņi, 96000 verse-measures in extent, a commentary on the Tattvārtha-mahāsūtra. Bhaākalanka has mentioned the name of the commentary as Cūdāmaņi. But he has not mentioned the name of the author. Indra-nandi (c. 930) has mentioned a Cūdāmaņi of Tumbulūr-ācārya, but that is a work of different nature; it will be discussed in the
coming paras. 2. There is another work with the name of Cūdāmani. An
inscription of AD 1129 states that Śrīvardhadeva, a crestjewel of authors, had composed Cūļāmaņi, a poem of eminence. Dandi [c. 660), the famous author of Daśa