Sumati Jnana

Author(s): Shivkant Dwivedi, Navneet Jain
Publisher: Shantisagar Chhani Granthamala

Page 67

07
Date of Acarya kundakund
Prof. Bhagchandra Jain
The date of Acarya Kundakunda is still a vexed problem, which could not be solved in such a way that could be approved by all the scholars. It requires the judicious and unbiased approach with a relative evaluation of the previous scholars' views and epigraphically records in right perspective. I need not refer to and evaluate all the views established by the scholars like Pt. Nathuram Premi, Dr. Pathak, Muni Kalyanavijiy, Pt. Jugal Kishor Mukhtar, Prof. Chakravarty, Dr. A. N. Upadhye, and Pt. Kailash Chandra Shastri. Dr. A. N. Upadhye evaluated all then existing important views and established the date of Kundakunda at the beginning of the Christian era with two limits in the introduction to the Pravacanasara (P. xii) as follows:
In the light of this long discussion on the age of Kundakunda wherein we have merely tried to weigh the probabilities after approaching the problem from various angles and by thoroughly thrashing the available traditions, we find that the tradition puts his age in the second half of the first century BC and the first half of the first century AD; the possibility of Satkhandagama being completed before Kundakunda would put him later than the middle of the second century AD, and the Merkara copper-plates would show that the later limit of his age would be the middle of the third century AD. Further the possibilities, in the light of the limitations discussed, that Kundakunda might have been a contemporary of king Shivakandha of the Pallava dynasty and that he, if proved to be the same as Elacharya on more definite grounds, might be the author of Kural, would imply that the age of Kundakunda should be limit, in the light of the circumstantial evidences noted above, to the first two centuries of the Christian era. I am inclined to believe, after this long survey of the available material, that Kundakunda's age lies at the beginning of the Christian era.
After the demise of Dr. Upadhye, the date of Kundakunda was not much discussed. Sometimes back Dr. M. A. Dhaky and Dr. Sagarmal Jain have reviewed the date fixed by Dr. Upadhye and expressed their views on the problem that Kundakunda may be even placed in about eighth century AD. Most of their arguments are based on the negative and inferential evidence. We shall now discuss them here in brief. Prof. Dhaky published his article in the Aspects of Jainology, Vol. 3, pp. 187-206, Varanasi, 1991 with the caption "The Date of Kundakundacarya" and Dr. Sagar Mal Jain got his article published in the Sagara Bharati.