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Studies in Haribhadrasūri different author who preceded Haribhadrasūri by a century or two, could not have been unknown to Haribhadra and the ancient preceptor would have also recorded his own name. Since he has not done so, possibly such an ancient preceptor did not exist at all, and Haribhadrasūri himself was the author of the work.
The gist of the above discussion is that just as Haribhadrasūri is the author of the commentary of the Pasca-sutta, he himself is likewise the author of the original text. The traditionally prevailing view as recorded by scholars quoted above thus becomes untenable, and all the alternative speculations too turn out to be but futile.
Now, the question arises that how did the confusion regarding the authorship of the Pañca-sūtra arose? It appears that this happened in the fifteenth century of the Vikrama Era. The three palm-leaf manuscripts then available, were possibly copied from the original ones in the twelfth and the fourteenth century of that era, and that there was no record anywhere about its author, as recorded by Muni Jambuvijayajī. These Mss end with the sentence ‘samattaṁ paṁcasuttań”.66
The first record of such a type is: “pāñcasūtram prākrtamūlam sūtrāṇi 210 vrttiś ca hāribhadrī 880 867 in the Brhattipaņikā, a list of the Jaina works, suppose to have been prepared by some learned Jaina monk in the fifteenth century of the Vikrama Era. Here it is mentioned that there are 210 aphorisms of the Pāñca-sutra in Prakrit and the commentary (by implication in Sanskrit) by Haribhadra comprises the extent of 880 (i.e. Anustubh verses). But the name of the author is conspicuous by its absence. On the strength of the use of the particle 'ca' here we may construe it with the first word 'pāñcasutraṁ' and interpret it to imply the sense of its adjective like 'Hāribhadram', meaning composed by Haribhadra. Of course, this might be far-fetched in view of the separate mention of the author of the Sūtra work. But it is noteworthy that there is no reference here to any ancient sage
