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Studies in Jainology, Prakrit
A.D.): It is incomplete and available uplo gahā No. 383 only of the Jivakanda. Whether the remaining part was written by the author or not can hardly be decided. Though available in part, it is the carliest available Sanskrit commentary on the Gommațasāra. This commentary, together with the other two, (iii) and (iv) discussed below, is published along with the Calcutta edition of the Gommatasāra.
(ii) Jivatattvapradipikā in Kannada (mixed with Sanskrit especially in the beginning) by Keśavavarni (1359 A.D.): This commentary is on both the Kāndas, complete and quite in detail. The author seems to have availed himself of the Mandaprabodhikā in the course of his writing. This commentary, unfortunately, is still in MS form.
(iii) Jivatattvapradipikā Sanskrit by Nemicandra (c. 1525 A.D.): This commentary is also on both the Kandas and complete. The author has followed the Mandaprabodhika in respect of several details. On the whole it is the translation of Kesavavarni's Kannada commentary.
(iv) Samyagjñānacandrikā in Hindi by Pt. Todarmal (little earlier than Samv. 1818): This commentary is almost the translation, at times with elaborations of the Sanskrit Sivataltvapradipikā of Nemicandra. The Hindi commentary is important in the sense that all the Hindi, English and Marathi translations of the Gommalasāra came to be based on it later. Moreover it helped, to a large extent, to make the Gommatasāra popular both among the modern scholars and the laity.
At this juncture, we cannot ignore the confused view of Pt. Todarmal and a few other scholars that Kesavavarni was the auihor of the Sanskrit Sivatattvapradipikā, which was based on the assumed Karnataka vrtti of Cāmundarāya. This confusion arose out of the following factors:
(a) The names of both the Kannada and the Sanskrit
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