Varahamihira and Bhadrabahu

Author(s): Ajay Mitra Shastri
Publisher: Z_Anandrushi_Abhinandan_Granth_012013.pdf

Page 15

Здравя заручаг श्री आनन्द जन्थ श्री आनन्द अन्थ
JJ
66 Dr. Ajay Mitra Shastri
compilation of about the middle of the present millennium attributed to Bhadrababu with the object of according it a respectable position.
(iv) The text of the Bhadrabahu-Samhita as it has come down to us appears to belong to the Digambara sect of Jainism. But a critical appraisal ot its contents reveals that in all probability the text was originally a Brahmanical one and was later given a Jaina appearance by adding a few Jainistic elements here and there.
(v) Although Bhadrabähu may have composed a work on astrology, it was probably not known as Bhadrabahu-Samhita, which name is met with for the first time in the fourteenth century A. D.
(vi) As shown by a critical examination of the contents of the Prabandhacintamani and the Prabandha-kosa, also called Caturvimsati-prabandha, their authots, Merutunga and Rajasekharasûri, had no historical sense, and the Varahaminira-Bhadrabahu episode recorded by them must be dismissed as of no historical value whatsoever.
References
1 These include the Brhat-samhita, Bṛhaj-jātaka. Laghu-jātaka, Yogayātrā, Tikanikayatra, Brhadyātri, Pañcasiddhantika and Vivāha-pajala. Of these, the Vivaha-patala still remains unpublished. For a collection of the avai lable fragments of the Samasa-Samhita, vide my paper in Bharatiya Vidya, vol. xxiii, pp. 23-39.
2 Brhaj-jätaka, xxviii, pp. 9.
3 For a full discussion of Varahamihira's life, date and works see Ch. 1 of my India as seen in the Brhat-samhita of Vardhamihira, Delhi, 1969.
4 Prabandha-cintamani, edited by Jinavijaya Muni, Singhi Jaina Series, No. 1, Santiniketan, 1933, Prakasa V. pp. 118-119.
5 Prabandhakoša, edited by Jinavijaya Muni, Singhi Jaina Series, No. 6, Santiniketan, 1935, Bhadrabahu-Varaha-Prabandha, pp. 2-4.
6 Tribhuvandas L. Shah, Ancient India, vol. iv, Baroda, 1941, pp. 338-339. On the basis of the Jaina evidence Shah avers that the Varahasamhita was composed 156 years after Mahavira's nirväna (Ibid., p. 339).
The Prabandha-cintamani, as stated in its colophone (p. 125), was comple ted in V. 1361 expired corresponding to A.D. 1306, while Rajasekharasuri finished his Prabandha-kośa in V. 1405 (p. 131) or A.D. 1349.
8 For a full discussion, see Kailash Chandra Shastri, Jaina Sahityaka Itihasa: Pürvápithika, Varanasi, Vira Nirvana year 2489, pp. 337-339.
9 Ibid., pp. 339f. Also vide, M. Winternitz. A History of Indian Literature, vol. ii, Calcutta, 1933, pp, 462, 476.
Cf. Harişena's: Brhat-katha-kośa (Singhi Jain Series, Bombay, 1943).