Temples of Kumbhariya

Author(s): M A Dhaky, U S Moorty
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

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Jainism in Gujarat
achieved the greatest expansion which included monastic proliferation, and indeed reached an acme of glory never to be duplicated in posterior times. One of the earliest and the greatest figure at the beginning of the tenth century was Siddhasena alias Siddharși of Nivṛtti kula. He, by then, had moved from the Lata territory in Gujarat to Bhillamāla in Gurjaradeśa in Rajasthan. Siddharṣi had composed the justly famous allegorical work-world's first and hence the earliest-the Upamitibhavaprapañcākatha (A.D. 905) in Sanskrit and a commentarial work on the Upadeśamālā of Dharmadāsa gani (c. A.D. 550). Probably, the Nyāyāvatāra ascribed to Siddhasena Divakara is his compilatory work. In Saurāṣṭra, Hariṣena of the Punnāta samgha composed the Kathākośa in A.D. 933 at Vardhamanapura. And Goggaṭācārya, a caityavāsī monk or abbot, composed a commentary on Samudra sūri's work in Dhavalakakka (Dholakā) in c. A.D. 950. (Apparently, a Jaina temple with monastic establishment had already existed in Dholakā.) Also, Pādalipta sūri (III) of Vidyadhara vamśa (kula) composed his famous ceremonial and iconographical work, the Nirvāṇakalikā, as also the Pundarika-prakīrṇaka olim Sārāvalī-prakīrṇaka (c. latter half of the 10th cent.), the last-noted work being the earliest glorificatory work on the celebrated tīrtha of Śatruñjayagiri. Of the three pontiffs going by the appellation 'Palitta' (whose biographies the medieval Jaina biographers/chroniclers confused), it was he, the third one, who apparently had met the Rāṣṭrakūta emperor Kṛṣṇa (III) at Manyakheṭaka (Malakheḍa), an event recorded in the Prabhavakacarita of Prabhācandra (A.D. 1277). Two more notices concerning the literary activities in this period pertain to some fine compositions, the hymn Jinaśataka (c. mid 10th cent.) and the Manipaticaritra (or more appropriately the Munipaticaritra) (A.D. 959) by Jambu alias Jambūnāga, a monk of Candra kula. On the Jinaśataka, Samba-muni of the Nagendra kula wrote a pañjikā (A.D. 969), an elucidatory work. And Pārśvanāga authored the Atmānusāsana (A.D. 986), a fine work pertaining to selfdiscipline leading to the elevation of soul.
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While noticing the literary achievements of those fruitful decades, we must add a few more. For instance, one Maheśvara sūri, disciple of Sajjana upadhyāya, composed the Pañcamī-māhātmya in Prakrit. The Saṁyama-mañjarī in Apabhraṁśa by some Maheśvara sūri could have been the work by the aforenoted pontiff. In the later part of the tenth century, Bhadreśvara sūri composed the Kahāvali, a ‘kathā' class of work which also dwells on the biographies of the historical personages like Pālitta (Padalipta) sūri, Siddhasena Divakara, Devarddhi gani, Mallavādī, and Haribhadra sūri which contain important pieces of information for the historians of
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