Medieval Jainism

SR No.: 011082
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Bhasker Anand Saletore
Publisher: Karnataka Publishing House
Total Pages: 448
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 27 MB

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MEDIÆVAL JAINISM bably the disciple of Baläkapiñccha. He is described in a record of A.D. 1115 as “an emperor of good conduct, proficient in logic, grammar, and the other sciences, a master of literature, a lion in smiting the herd of intoxicated elephants, the false disputants, etc."1
As regards Akalanka's great powers, we have a graphic account of this teacher in a record dated A.D. 1129. “Who can comprehend (the greatness of) the blessed Akalankadeva, by whom Tārā that had become secretly manifest in a pot as her abode was overcome along with the Bauddhas... in the dust of whose lotus feet Sugata (i.e., Buddha) performed an ablution as if in expiation of his sins ?” In the court of a king called Sāhasatunga, Akalanka, as we have already seen above, while describing his own greatness said that it was not influenced by self-conceit or hatred, but through inere compassion that he overcame all the crowds of Bauddhas and broke Sugata with his foot, and that he achieved this fact in the court of the shrewd king Himaśītala.?
Numerous epigraphs, which are not cited here, refer to this victory won by Akalankadeva. But the identity of the king Himaśītala is still a matter of uncertainty. Wilson made him a Pallava king and assigned him to A.D. 788. The same scholar is responsible for the assertion that Akalanka studied Buddhism in the Buddhist college at Ponataga Nagaram near Trivātur.4 But Brahma Nemidatta informs us that
1. E. C. II, 127, p. 52 ; Cf. 66 of A.D.., 1176 p. 21. 2. Ibid., II, 67, op. cit.
3. Wilson, Mackenzie Collection, Intr. p. 40. How Prof. S. K. Ayyangar came to date this event in A.D. 855 is unintelligible. Ancient India, p. 269.
4. Wilson, ibid., Rice, My. Ins., Intr. p. 56; Pampa Rāmā. yana, Intr. p. 3. (1832); Karnātaka Sabdānuśāsana, Intr. pp. 9-10, 24-25.