Studies in Haribhadrasuri

Author(s): N M Kansara, G C Tripathi
Publisher: B L Institute of Indology

Page 11

Introduction
ix
Nandī, Pañca-sūtra, Pañca-vastu, and Śrāvaka-prajñapti, show a colophone containing one or more of the following elements: krtir iyam/Sitāmbarācāryasya (or Svetāmbara-bhiksor)/Jina-padasevakasya/Jinadatta-sisyasya/dharmato Yākini-mahattarā-sūnor/ Haribhadrasya. Even this second element of this is distinctive, for very few early Svetāmbara writers are accustomed thus to stress that they belong to a particular sect. Moreover, the special mention of the nun Yākinī, in association with the two other people, viz., Jinabhata and his guru Jinadatta, who had influenced the writer's life, justifies us in applying to the author of the works that bear this colophone the designation of Yākini-putra.
Now, as to the virahārka', each of the 19 Pañcāšakas is signed with it in the last line. But this reappears again in Astaka, Dharmabindu, Sambodha-prakarana, śāstra-vārtā-samuccaya, Sodasaka, Yoga-bindu, Yoga-drsti-samuccaya, and in the comentaries on the Daśa-vaikālika, Caitya-vandana, and Pañca-vastu. R. Williams has pinpointed a flagrant case of a false use of the anka occurring in the Sambodha-prakarana (or Tattva-prakāšaka) which is clearly much later than the time of Yākinī-putra. Yet not only does the word bhava-viraha appear in the last line but the colophone even records that the treatise was composed by Haribhadrasūri for the enlightenment of Menorahīyā, a female pupil of Yākinī Mahattarā, which smacks of deliberate forgery designed to lend the authority of a famous name to a later work. It is a diffuse verse tract in Prakrit (except for seven Sanskrit verses, viz., XI.5– 11), and gives summary information on miscellaneous themes in a way that suggests an imitation of the Pravacana-sāroddhara. Unlike that encyclopaedia it is, however, strung together without logical sequence, and is often repetitive, and at times even selfcontradicting. This fact alone would call for caution in accepting an ascription to Yākinī-putra whose method of exposition is uniformly clear, taut and orderly.