The author and his context

Although Amitagati is recognised as a prolific author in secondary literature (see Winternitz 1920, 343-347; Warder 1992, 253-261; Premi 1942, 172-184 a.o.), detailed information about his life is limited. Our most indicative sources for this are his own praśastis to the Dharmaparīkṣā and the Subhāṣitaratnasaṃdoha.¹ From these we know that Amitagati was a mendicant in the Mathūrasaṃgha of the Kāṣṭhasaṃgha of Digambara Jainism, following in the lineage of Vīrasena, Devasena, Amitagati (1), Nemiṣena and Mādhavasena.² Amitagati (2) lived in the first half of the eleventh century since he wrote the Dharmaparīkṣā in 1070 VS and the Subhāṣitaratnasaṃdoha in 1050 VS In this latter work he refers to Rāja Muñja as the ruler at the time (SRS 32.44), and in his Paṃcasaṃgraha he refers to Muñja's successor King Sindhu (as Sindhupati) (Premi 1942: 182).³ Other works composed by Amitagati are the Upāsakācāra (known as Amitagati Śrāvakācāra) and

1 Most secondary sources render the title as subhāṣitaratnasaṃdoha (see e.g. Winternitz 1920: 344; Varni 2000:

436; Jain and Upadhye 1968: 6; Velankar 1944: 445). However Schmidt resists this title as he claims that all manuscripts he has consulted read subhāṣitasaṃdoha in the work itself (1904: 447). For convenience sake, I take Subhāṣitaratnasaṃdoha following the majority of the secondary sources, as well as the catalogue of the Bhattarkiya Granth Bhandar at Nagaur (1981: n. 352).

2 The full lineage is found in the praśasti of the Dharmaparīkṣā. The praśasti of the Subhāṣitaratnasaṃdoha leaves out Vīrasena. Johrapurkar mentions that our Amitagati is the earliest author to affiliate with the Māthuragaccha and to mention its lineage. Only Devasena's Darśanasāra is an earlier source to mention the name of the Māthuragaccha and its supposed founder Rāmasena (Johrapurkar 1958: 238).

3 Subhāṣitaratnasaṃdoha 32.44:

samārūḍhe pūtatridaśavasaṃti vikramanṛpe sahasre varṣāṇāṃ prabhavati hi pañcāśadadhike, samāptaṃ pañcamyāmavati dharaṇīṃ muñjanṛpatau site pakṣe pauṣe budhahitamidaṃ śāstramanagham. 44

'Als der Männerfürst Vikrama nach der lauteren Wohnung der Dreissig (Götter) hinaufgestiegen war und ein Tausend von Jahren vorlag, vermehrt um fünfzig, am fünften Tage in der lichten Hälfte im Monat Pauṣa, als der Männerfürst Muñja die Erde beschütze, ist dieses den Verständigen heilsame, makellose Buch verfasst worden.' (translation by Schmidt 1908: 582):

The praśasti to the Paṃcasaṃgraha reads (Premi 1942: 182):

mādhavasenagaṇī gaṇanīyaḥ śuddhatamo'jani tatra janīyaḥ / bhūyasi satyavatīva śaśāṃkaḥ śrīmati sindhupatāvakalaṃkaḥ //

supposedly the Ārādhanā (Jain and Upadhye 1968: 7).⁴ All these texts seem to involve the moral behaviour of the Jain laity (śrāvakācāra), which can thus be recognised as an important theme of his oeuvre and of his teaching or guidance in general.⁵ As a poet Amitagati seems to have excelled in subhāṣitas ('beautified sayings'). This is evidenced by his Subhāṣitaratnasaṃdoha – the title itself ('treasury of subhāṣita-gems') professes this – and by the Dharmaparīkṣā of which Mironow has stated that the didactic content of its nineteenth and twentieth chapter is very similar to the Subhāṣitaratnasaṃdoha (1903: 41).

Another significant characteristic of his authorial occupation is that he translated Prakrit works, namely the Dharmaparīkṣā, Paṃcasaṃgraha, and Ārādhanā, into Sanskrit. Such translatory practices seem to have gained relevance around the time in which he lived. I will discuss his choice for Sanskrit below. Much more about the life of Amitagati is not known, but we can resort to his historical context in order to obtain a more meaningful understanding of the author's activities and motivations.

2.1.1 Amitagati in the Paramāra kingdom

As we know from his reference to Rājā Muñja in the Subhāṣitaratnasaṃdoha, Amitagati lived in the Malwa region at the end of the tenth and beginning of the eleventh century, that was ruled by the Paramāra dynasty. This dynasty had benefitted from the power struggle between the Rāṣṭrakūṭas and Pratihāras and gained hold of the Malwa region to rule it as an independent kingdom.⁶ By the time of its two most famous kings, King Muñja (also known as Vākpati II) and King Bhoja, the dynasty had become a strong imperialistic kingdom that attracted people from different regions and that flourished in all cultural fields. King Muñja himself came to power in 972 CE and expanded the kingdom in several directions during his reign. What is of interest here, is that he seems to have been a

4 The Śrāvakācāra is quoted by Jaini as the second oldest of this type of works in the Digambara tradition (1979:

80).

Other works that are authored by an Amitagati are the Dvātriṃśikā, the Tattvabhāvanā, and Yogasāraprābhṛta, but these are supposedly written by a different author with the same name, possibly the Amitagati (1) whom our Amitagati (2) mentions as his predecessor (Jain and Upadhye 1968: 8).

5 Of Amitagati's works the following have been published so far: (1) the Subhāṣitaratnasaṃdoha edited by Śāstri in the Kāvyamāla series (vol. 82, 1903), and re-edited and translated in German by Richard Schmidt (1908); (2) the Dharmaparīkṣā edited with Hindi paraphrase by Bālacandra Śāstri (1978); (3) the Pañcasaṃgraha (1960) in an edition together with the Prakrit original text (mūlagāthā) and a Hindi translation with commentary, this was earlier published in the Māṇikacandra Digambara Jaina granthamālā series (vol. 25, 1927) edited by Darabārīlāla Nyāyatīrtha; (4) the Śrāvakācāra (1989) with Hindi translation; and (5) the Āradhanā edited in the Śrī Svāmī Devendrakīrti Digambara Jain Granthamālā series (1935) together with the original Prakrit text by Śivakoṭi.

6It is not clear where the Paramāra dynasty came from exactly. Jain reviews several origin legends of the Paramāras of which none seems to offer a historically correct account. He connects them to Abu in current Rajasthan (1972: 329).

fervent supporter of cultural production. He ordered the construction of many temples and other architecture and patronised several authors, amongst whom were Padmagupta, Dhanañjaya, Dhanika, Dhanapāla, Śobhana, and Halāyudha (Jain 1972: 340-341). After the short rule by Sindhurāja,⁷ Muñja's younger brother, King Bhoja followed this elan, when he ascended the throne around 1011. This 'universal man' was one of India's most important kings for the development of literary culture and became himself, in Pollock's words, 'the most celebrated poet-king and philosopher-king of his time, and perhaps of any Indian time' (Pollock 2006: 178). The highly cultured courts of both kings produced a vast amount of texts of all genres including poetry, treatises on dramaturgy, poetics and grammar, narrative literature, and philosophical texts.⁸ Amitagati was one of the adepts of this flourishing culture.

The Jains occupied a prominent space in the Malwa region, as is evidenced by many temples and images that were consecrated during the Paramāra period and even earlier.⁹ The Digambara Mūlasaṃgha was well-established in the area from at least the seventh century. Their paṭṭāvalis tell how Malwa became an important region of pontifical centres in the migration of the Digambara community from the South to the North (see Hoernle 1892). Another source on the medieval history of the Digambaras in the Malwa region is the Darśanasāra by the Mūla Saṃgha author Devasena, who wrote in Dhāra in the beginning of the tenth century (990 VS).¹⁰ The fact that this work attacks several internal divisions within the Digambara community suggests the existence of several Digambara gacchas at that time in relative proximity to Devasena. The centrality of Malwa to the Digambara community is further demonstrated by the fact that several bhaṭṭāraka seats originated there (e.g. at Ujjain). Although the bhaṭṭāraka installation may have only taken

7 According to Jain, he ruled from 995 to 1000 CE (1972: 341).

8 A few examples of texts by prominent court authors are the Navasāhasāṅkacarita, an epic poem by Padmagupta, Dhanañjaya's Daśarūpa on dramaturgy, Bhoja's Śṛṅgāraprakāśa on dramaturgy and poetics, his commentary on Patañjali titled the Rājamārtaṇḍa, and his grammar the Sarvastīkāṇṭhābharaṇa, next to the compositions discussed below. According to Pollock, King Bhoja greatly emphasised grammatical correctness (2006: 179), which seems to follow logically from the fact that by the end of the first millennium the analysis of literature had become thoroughly permeated by the concepts, principles, and procedures of Mīmāṃsā, the 'discipline of discourse' (vākyaśāstra), or 'scriptural hermeneutics' (2003: 53). This is interesting to keep in mind when reading my discussion of Amitagati's refutations of Mīmāṃsā thought below (p. 89).

9 Amongst the examples mentioned by Jain (1972) are a Jain temple complex at Badoh dated between the ninth and twelfth centuries (431), ruins of a Jain temple at Bhojapur attributed to Bhoja's reign (437), a Jain temple at Sandhara and at Kethuli (438-439), and several temples at Un (442).

10 In fact, it is not certain if the work was written in 990 V.S., or in 909 V.S. The Prakrit word 'naüe' can mean either ninety or nine (Darśanasāra 49-50). Premi chose to render the date as 909 (1917: 21), after emending the word 'naüe' into 'navae' (Upadhye 1933-34: 206). Upadhye acknowledges the uncertainty in the interpretation of the word and writes that the Darśanasāra was compiled in 909 or 990 V.S. (1983: 192).

shape after Amitagati's time,¹¹ the gacchas linked to these seats already had their strongholds in the region.¹² The prominence of Jain ascetics and scholars also left its mark on the courtly milieu, even though the Paramāra kings are supposed to have followed Śaivism (see Jain 1972: 407-408). Amitagati himself mentions King Muñja and might thus have attended his court (cf. infra), and there are other authors who were linked to Muñja's reign, such as Mahāsena, Dhanapāla, and Dhaneśvara (Jain 1972: 401). In order to gain more insight into the social context of Amitagati's writing, it is worth zooming in on some of the Jain scholars who are known to have participated in the courtly circles of the Paramāra kingdom.

A court poet for King Muñja was Dhanapāla,¹³ who is most famous for his Tilakamañjarī which, in Warder's words, 'reflects the chivalrous illusions of the Paramāra kings, too heroic, too generous, too educated and devoted to the arts to succeed in their aspiration of building a great empire in emulation of the already legendary Vikramāditya' (1988:

756).¹⁴ He also wrote the Païyalacchīnāmamālā in 972/973 AD, a Prakrit lexicon that is interesting for the reception history of Prakrit language, and the Ṛṣabhapañcāśikā, a Prakrit hymn in fifty verses to the Jina Ṛṣabha.¹⁵ Dhanapāla was a Brahmin who converted to Jainism before the writing of his most famous work (see fn. 13, p. 85 and Warder 1988:

759, n. 4212).¹⁶ This anecdote demonstrates that conversions to Jainism were happening in Amitagati's time and is therefore interesting to an evaluation of the Dharmaparīkṣā. It proves the actuality of inter-religious polemical texts and suggests their relevance to historical conversion. In several sources (Premi 1942; Jain 1972; Dhanapāla 1938),

11 Johrapurkara writes that the bhaṭṭāraka rank was installed by the thirteenth century or at earliest after the ninth century (1958: 7). As such, Amitagati's time (the eleventh century) is before the bhaṭṭāraka rank was commonly used, or at most in the beginning period of its use.

12 Amitagati himself is the first monk to attest to being part of the Māthura Gaccha. He mentions five predecessors in this gaccha (cf. supra).

13Dhanapāla writes in his Tilakamañjarī (1938: 7): taj-janmā janakāṅghri-paṅkaja-rajaḥ-sevāpta-vidyālavo vipraḥ śrīdhanapāla ity aviśadām etām abadhnāt kathām, akṣuṇṇo'pi vivikta-sūkti-racane yaḥ sarva-vidyābdhinā śrīmuñjena sarasvatīti sadasi kṣoṇībhṛtā vyāhṛtaḥ. 53 ('The honourable Dhanapāla, born as a Brahmin, with [only] a piece (lava) of the knowledge acquired by honouring the dusty lotusfeet of his father, composed this complex (aviśada) story.

Although inexperienced in composing distinguished verses, he was requested [to compose this story] by the honourable king Muñja who is an ocean of all knowledge, like Sarasvatī, at his assembly'; author's own translation).

14 The Tilakamañjarī is a 'full-length novel' in Sanskrit recounting the deeds of Prince Harivāhana, son of King Meghavāhana, who is enchanted by the painting of a princess called Tilakamañjarī. The story of the prince is entwined with the subsidiary story of Samaraketu, son of the king of Ceylon and ally to Meghavāhana (see Warder 1988: 759-787).

15 It is not clear if the Apabhraṃśa Bhavisayattakahā was written by the same Dhanapāla (Warder 1988: 741).

16Merutuṅga's Prabandhacintāmaṇi accounts how Dhanapāla was convinced by his brother, who followed the Śvetāmbara Kharataragaccha Jain yati Vardhamānasūri, to convert to Jainism (Bühler 1879: 8). According to Bühler 'it seems to be quite correct that Dhanapâla was at first an adherent of one of the Brahmanical sects and that he later became a Jaina S’râvaka' (1879: 9).

Dhanapāla is also linked to the court of Bhoja and even said to have 'softened' Bhoja towards Jain religion. However, these statements are based upon later legends (e.g.

Prabandhacintāmaṇi) and their historical value should not be taken for granted (see also Bühler 1879: 9-10). His Tilakamañjarī opens with a praise to the Jinas and to Sarasvatī, and then proceeds by narrating the entwined stories of Harivāhana and Samaraketu. That this work was patronised by Rāja Muñja illustrates that Jain authors indeed had a place at the pluralist court (see fn. 12). However, because this work is mainly secular in its theme, it is difficult to assess to what extent emphatically religious works would have circulated in the courtly environment.

Mahāsena was another author who seems to have been patronised by King Muñja. In the praśasti to his Pradyumnacarita we can read: 'āsīt śrīmahāsenasūrir anaghaḥ śrīmuṃjarājārcitaḥ' ('He was the faultless Mahāsena Sūri, who was honoured by Śrī Muñja Rāja') and 'śrīsindhurājasya mahattamena śrīparpaṭenārcitapādapadmaḥ' ('His lotusfeet were honoured by Śrī Parpaṭa who was a Mahattama ("high official") for Śrī Sindhu Rāja') (Premi 1942: 183). These two lines indicate Mahāsena's importance at the Paramāra court of King Muñja as well as his legacy in the following reign of King Sindhū through his disciple Parpaṭa. Except for his affiliation to the Lāḍa Bāgaḍa Saṃgha of the Digambara Kāṣṭha Saṃgha, not much is known about Mahāsena. His Pradyumnacarita is a kāvya composition of the specific Jain version of the story of Pradyumna, the son of Kṛṣṇa and Rukmiṇī (see Warder 1992: 21-26).¹⁷ This composition of a Jain account of a story from the Kṛṣṇa lore, seems to confirm that the Paramāra court was receptive of such competing Jain versions of the purāṇic-epic corpus. It is therefore not unimaginable that discussions over this corpus may have taken place.

During the reign of Bhoja, Jain authors remained active at the court. Prabhācandra, of the Digambara Mūlasaṃgha, is supposed to have been one of the leading scholars at Bhoja's court (Kaslival 1950: 10). His Prameyakamalamārtaṇḍa, that forms a development of Akalaṅka's response to Buddhist thinking (of Dharmakīrti) together with his Nyāyakumudacandra (see Gorisse 2014), testifies to having been written during Bhoja's reign. And the long list of works that are signed by his name demonstrate the literary prowess and support he must have had. Other works, such as the Ārādhanā-gadya-kathākośa were presumably written during the reign of Jayasimha, the successor of Bhoja (Jain 1972: 475). The variety in Prabhācandra's writings illustrate the wide array of topics that were appreciated by courtly audiences. Moreover, the fact that his philosophical texts commentate upon Akalaṅka's theory and add explicit references to Dharmakīrti's thought, are proof of the deeply argumentative nature of the scholarly discussions held at Bhoja's court.

17 See also Austin (2019: 111-140) for other Jain versions of Pradyumna's story.

Further scant sources confirm the picture of literary discussions at the court of the Paramāra kings, and the Jain authors' prominent participation in them. I would like to make a final mention here of the Śvetāmbara Jaina scholar Dhaneśvara, who is said to have gained victory in Bhoja's literary assembly, and the ascetic Śāntisena who, according to an inscription from Dubkuṇḍ, is said to have defeated his opponents in an assembly presided over by the king (Trivedi 1991: 191).

This background that establishes the strength of Jain ascetics of different affiliations within the discussion and argumentation platforms that seem to have had a vivid presence at the Paramāra court during the time of Amitagati, has implications on our assessment of Amitagati's own social milieu. It suggests the receptiveness of Paramāra courtly circles to all sorts of religio-philosophical topics and discussions, including works that explicitly support the Jain view. Therefore, I would hypothesise that Amitagati's mention of King Muñja in the Subhāṣitaratnasaṃdoha could very well indicate his own presence at Muñja's court. Indeed, it seems likely that the Paramāra king would have attracted prominent Jain scholars, such as Amitagati, to discuss and explain their work at court, in order to enhance the prestige of his 'multicultural' reign. The style and language of the work would add to such an interpretation (cf. infra p. 52-57). As a consequence, we might also wonder if the Dharmaparīkṣā would have circulated among these courtly intellectuals, beyond the Jain community. Can we see the argumentation by Manovega against the Brahmins as reflecting the argumentation by Amitagati against his would-be opponents in scholarly discussions?¹⁸ I will come back to this issue in my conclusion, after setting out my detailed examination of Amitagati's Dharmaparīkṣā.