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Who is the Author of the Pañca-sūtra?
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'Pāpa-pratighāta-bījādhāna-sūtra-víttau. This is quite noteworthy, since it indicates that Yaśovijayajī had in view some credible tradition of attributing the authorship of the Pañca-sūtra to Haribhadra-sūri. Otherwise he would not have framed this sentence in this way. With reference to such, though apparently insignificant matter, we may take one more example of such rational vigilance. We know that the Sodaśaka is a treatise of undoubted authorship of Haribhadrasūri, and Yaśovijayajī has written a commentary on it, too. Therein in the last Sodaśaka, i.e. the group of sixteen verses, there are seventeen instead of sixteen verses. In the seventeenth one, viz., “Vacanam nanu hāribhadram idań,20 there is a clear mention of the name. This would warrant a reasonable conclusion that Haribhadrasūri himself, and none else, is the author of the work, according to the belief of the commentator. But Yaśovijayajī must have some other view too about this seventeenth verse, since he has inserted the sentence 'Sisyakartrkeyam āryetyanye 21 at the end of the commentary on this verse. Even on the basis of this much evidence, one can easily understand that it must not have been possible for him to put some such statement as '. . . Śrī-haribhadrasūribhir apy uktam'. Thus, in the case of the Pañca-sūtra, he must have had a firm conviction that the author of the work was none other than Haribhadrasūri himself, and it is for this very reason that he has made such a statement. Thus it stands to reason Haribhadrasūri himself is the author of the Pañca-sūtra.
(4) The titles, such Panca-vastuka, Pañca-sūtraka, Astaka, Sodaśaka, Vimsikā, Pañcāsaka, found in the Jaina literature are a characteristic of only Haribhadrasūri. The name Pañca-sūtraka could be conceived by a genius like Haribhadrasūri only. Muni Jambuvijayajī writes: 'The name of the treatise written by Ācārya Haribhadrasūri is Pañca-vastu in the practical convention; still he has given the name Pañca-vastuka to it and he has shown its etymological interpretation in the same way.22 This gives a positive support to our inference that such names are the
