Sanskrit Manuscripts : Vītarāgastotra

Hemacandra, Hemacandra

Sanskrit Manuscripts

<p style='text-align: justify;'>A manuscript of the <i>Vītarāgastotra</i> of Hemacandra with an anonymous Sanskrit commentary copied in V.S. 1607 = 1550 CE within the span of one month, as shown by the comparison of the internal colophon at the very end of <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(15);return false;'>f. 7v15</a> and the final colophon. The slightly different appearance of the script after f. 7v, combined with a layout of 12 lines per page instead of 15, may suggest that two (unnamed) scribes worked on this manuscript: one from the beginning up to the end of f. 7v, the second from f. 8r onwards. This is a commentary of the simple kind, whose author does not introduce himself and does not start his work with any preliminary stanza, but plunges directly into the explanation of verse 1. The <i>Vītarāgastotra</i> is a Sanskrit poetic hymn in twenty sections dedicated to the beauty and perfection of a Jina. Its author is the 12th century Jaina Śvetāmbara polymath monk Hemacandra, who wrote it for the king of Gujarat Kumārapāla a little after V.S. 1216 = 1159 CE. The 20 sections are distributed as follows: Section 1 ends on <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(3);return false;'>f. 1v9</a>; Section 2 on f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(5);return false;'>2v2</a>; Section 3 on <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(7);return false;'>f. 3v13</a>; Section 4 on <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(10);return false;'>f. 5r5</a>; Section 5 on <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(11);return false;'>5v15</a>; Section 6 on <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(14);return false;'>f. 7r6</a>; Section 7 on <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(15);return false;'>f. 7v15</a>; Section 8 begins on <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(16);return false;'>f. 8r1</a> and ends on <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(19);return false;'>f. 9v13</a>; Section 9 ends on <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(21);return false;'>10v10</a>; Section 11 on <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(25);return false;'>f. 12v8</a>; Section 12 on <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(27);return false;'>f. 13v4</a>; Section 13 on <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(29);return false;'>f. 14v10</a>; Section 15 on <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(33);return false;'>f. 16v11</a>; Section 16 on <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(36);return false;'>f. 18r1</a>; Section 17 on <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(37);return false;'>f. 18v9</a>; Section 18 on <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(39);return false;'>f. 19v13</a>; Section 19 on f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(41);return false;'>20v11</a>; and Section 20 on <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(43);return false;'>f. 21v12</a>. Each of them has a title but in this manuscript only the names of sections 3 and 20 are provided. </p>