Yasastilaka and Indian Culture

Author(s): Krishnakant Handiqui
Publisher: Jain Sanskruti Samrakshak Sangh Solapur

Page 20

CHAPTER I SOMADEVA AND HIS AGE
Two works of Somadeva are extant: Yasastilakal and Nitivākydmrta. The former, called also Yasodhara-mahaīrāja-carita, deals with the pathetic story of Prince Yasodhara in prose and verse in eight Books called Asvāsas. The latter work is a treatise on polity, divided into thirty-two chapters consisting of aphorisms on the various topics dealt with.. Nitivakyānrta seems to have been written after Yasastilaka.
Somadeva gives a fair amount of information about himself at the end of his Yasastilaka. He belonged to an order of Jaina monks known as Devasamgha, and was the disciple of Nemideva who was the disciple of Yasodeva. The colophon to Nītivākyāmrta tells us that Somadeva was the younger brother of Mahendradeva, and had the following honorific titles: Syādvādâcalasimha 'A lion on the mountain of Syādvāda', Tārkika-cakravartin
The Lord of the logicians', Vadībha-pañcānana 'A lion to the elephants, to wit, the disputants', Vākkallola-payonidhi “An ocean of the waves of eloquence', and Kavikularāja "The king of the poets'. We are also told that Somadeva was the author of Yasodhara-mahārāja-carita, Sannavatiprakarana, Mahendra-mitali-sarjalpa and Yakticintā manisūtra. There is some doubt about the title of the last work, as a manuscript of Nitiväkyāmsta written in Samvat 1290, and preserved in one of the Jaina Bhandārs at Pattan, gives it as Yukticintāmaņistava*.
In one of the concluding verses of Yasastilaka Somadeva tells us that the work was copied by a celebrated scribe named Racchuka, who was called Lekhaka-sikhāmaņi, and whose calligraphy seems to have been utilized by the fair sex for their love-letters. All trace of this first copy of the original manuscript seems to have been lost.
| Kavyamālā 70, Parts I & II, Bombay 1901. 2 Māņikachandra D. Jaina Granthamālā 22, Bombay 1922. 3 श्रीमानस्ति स देवसंघतिलको देवो यश-पूर्वका, शिष्यस्तस्य बभूव सद्गुणनिधिः श्रीनेमिदेवाइयः। तस्याश्चर्यतपःस्थितेस्त्रि
radigital art, false Atha la UFTRITT F1674: 11 Yaśastilaka, part II, p. 418. 4 Descriptive Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Jain Bhandars at Pattan, Vol. I, p. 31. 5 विद्याविनोदवनवासितहृच्छुकेन, पुस्तं व्यलेखि विलसल्लिपि रच्छुकेन । श्रीसोमदेवरचितस्य यशोधरस्य, स लोकमान्य
गुणरत्नमहीधरस्य ।। अपि च । यस्याक्षरावलिरधीरविलोचनाभिराकायते मदनशासनलेखनेषु । तस्मै विवेकिषु न यच्छति रच्छुकाय, को नाम लेखकशिखामणिनामधेयम् ।।.