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An attempt to trace the Source
conclusion obtained from the reference to Poyyamoli in the verse relating the merits of Naccinarkkiniyar's commentary (uraiccirappuppāyiram) of the Cc. The question still remains whether the Cintamani and Cūļāmaņi referred to in the Epitaph of Mallisena and Tirumakūdļu Narasipūc Taluq inscription are the Tamil works bearing these names. In this context T. A. Gopinatha Rao observes that "after sage Guņabhadra there lived one Kumārasena and after him came the author of the Cintāmani, and the author of the Calāmaņi".1 This conclusion has been accepted and restated by Vaiyapuri Pillal, a Auvai Turaicamipillai, 3 Balasubrahmaniyam, and T. P. Meenaksisundaran.5 But there is no referenee to Gunabhadra in the above two inscriptions. Balasubrahmaniyam refers to Yāpparunkalam Virutti urai (the commentary written on Yāpparunkalam) when mentioning Kumārasena. These authors may have had in mind one Kumārasena who appears to have lived around the later part of the 9th Century A.D.
Kumārasena and the authors of the Cc, and Cūļāmaņi are said to have belonged to Arungalānvaya branch of the Nandigaņa in the Dravida Sangha according to the Tirumakūļļu Narasipür Taluq inscription. This would make it likely that these are the two Tamil poems calld Cintāmani and Cūlamani. Irrespective of whether they belonged to the Kannada or the Tamil country, the Jaina preceptors of those days appear to have been well versed in Tamil, Kannada and Sanskrit and there was considerable intermingling among the members of Jaina religious order of the Kannada and Tamil speaking regions.9 In his footnotes to the Mallişena Prasasti, Lewis Rice says that Samantabhadra is said to have written a Cintāmaņițippaņi or commentary on the Cintāmaņi and AbhinavaManga Raja is said to have written a Cintamani Pratipada or word to word translation of the same. 10 He also refers to a Cintāmapi which is a commetary on Śākațāyana's grammar. As for Cuļāmaņi he mentions the reference in Bhatta Akalanka Deva's Karnāțaka Śabdanuśāsanam to a commentary by that name on Tattvārtha-Maha Šāstra. 11 He says that this work is referred to in Rājāvali kathā and attributed there to Tumbulur-Ācāryar.
But, the Mallişena Prasasti describes these two works in the following terms: "the epic Cintāmaņi which is capable of yielding all the four ends of life" and "Cūļāmaņi 1 T. A. Gopinatha Rao, op. cit. pp. 95-102. 2 S. Vaiyapuri Pillai, op. cit. p. 172. 3 Auvai, C. Turaicāmipillai, op. cit. p. 11. 4 B. Balasubrahmaniyam, op. cit. p. 19. 5 T. P. Meenaksisundaran, A History of Tamil Literature, Annamalai, 1965, p. 90. 6 Balasubrahmanyam, op. cit. p. 19. 7 Jyoti Prasad Jain. op. cit. p. 160. Footnote 2. 8 Epigraphia Carnatica, Vol. III, Part I, p. 171 ff. 9 A typical example for this is the word "olliyan' which is used by Tēvar to signify a good person.
Naccinarkkipiyar points out that this is a Ticaic col' i.e. a word of alien origin and U. V. Swaminatha Iyer indicates that this word is used in this sense in Kannada. Cc. edited by U.V.
Swaminatha Iyer, op. cit. p. 372. Cc. v. 741. 10 B. Lewis Rice, Inscriptions at Sravana Belgola, Epigraphia Carnatica, Vol. II, p. 135. 11 Ibid, p. 135.
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