Umaswami-A Saint Of Kunda Kunda Lineage

Umaswami was the earliest Digambara saint that had committed to writing in samskrit, a systematic legal basis, for Jaina religious thought. He was a non-controversial and accepted authority even by Svetambaras in spite of their basic religious differences with Digambaras. He was variously named as Umaswami, Umasvati etc., by different commentators of his work.

His famous work Tattvarthathigama Sutras contains 357 Sutras which are divided into 10 chapters. Hence, it is also called Dasadhyaya. It occupies in Jainism a place equal to that of Visuddhimagga in Buddhism. It formed the source material for the later Dharma Sutras as well, formulated by different authors like Kapila, Kanada, Gautama, Patanjali etc.

The final aim of the treatise is moksa sadhana, as such, it is also named as Moksa Sastra. It speaks of the importance of human life and lays stress on the moral, philosophic and ritualistic code of conduct of the human being in the attainment of moksa and kevalajnana.

It appears, that the source of inspiration

It appears, that the source of inspirationof his work was the Pancas- tikaya of Kunda Kunda Acarya. The following lines from the two texts reveal the identity of views. Samvaranirjaro bandho mokho hyavanti te aha Paacastikaya-103 Bandha hetva bhava nirjarabhyam krtsna karma vipramokso moksa. Tattvarathathigama Sutra—Chap. 1, Sutra-9.

Nevertheless, he claims his descent from Kunda Kunda, with the title Kunda Kundamaya and gradhapichha usually found in a sloka at the end of its commentary Tattvartha Prasati which contained reference to Umaswami, thus. Tattavartha sastra Kartaram grdhra pichho pa laksitamvande ganindra sanjatam umasvami munisvaram.

There were several subsequent commentaris on his work like Gandha- hasti Mahabhasya (100 A.D.) by Samanatabhadra, Ratnamala by Sivaskandasri (150 A.T).),Sarvartha Siddhi byDevanandi Pujyapada (524 A.D.) and Tattvartha raja yartika by Akalanka (675 A.D.), Tattavartha slokavartikam by Vidyanand (8th. A.D.) indicating its importance.

According to Svetambaras, he performed several miracles and the Pattavalis of Digambaras claim that he had the full Knowledge of the original canon from his title Srutakevalidesiya^ He belonged to nandi sangha and was said to have succeeded Kunda Kunda, who possibly died around (44 A.D.). Not much is known about his parenthood or nativity of Umasvami, but according to some sources, he died around 75A.D.