Trishashti Shalaka Purush Charita Mahakavyam_01

Author(s): Hemchandracharya, Charanvijay
Publisher: Atmanand Jain Sabha

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FOREWORD Few words are needed to send this publication out. The Trishashtis'alaka. purushacharitam of which it forms a part is a well-known Jaina work and does not stand in need of any introduction. Hemachandra, the author of it, is a celebrity with whom every student of Jainism is familiar. He was a versatile genius and a great S'vetāmbara teacher or achārya, who wielded considerable influence in the courts of Siddharaja Jayasimha (1150-1200 V. S.) and of Kumārapāla (1200-1230 V. S.), the two famous rulers of mediaeval Gujarāt. Several works are attributed to him. The Siddhahēmavyākarana is his chief work on grammar. It was written at the request of Siddharāja Jayasimha. The respectful way in which it was received by the royal patron is represented in one of the illustrations which I have reproduced in my first Memoir in the Gaekwad's Archaeological Series ; plate X. The Trishashtis'alakāpurushacharitam was written at the request of Kumārapāla and is equally important. It gives interesting accounts of the lives of the Tirthařkaras and other members of the Jaina hierarchy or pantheon. Some thirty years ago it was published at Bhavnagar but that edition has now been exhausted. At the same time it was very faulty, as can be seen from the list of errors given in Dr. Helen M. Johnson's translation of the first parvan which was published in the Gaekwad's Oriental Series in 1931. A good edition of this important work remained a desideratum and that is now being removed by the present publication which is based on
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