Gunaratna’s Saradipika

Summary

Gunaratna’s Śāradīpikā, studied by T.S. Nandi, is an unpublished Jain commentary whose text survives in two manuscripts. Gunaratnagaṇi, a monk of the Kharatara Gaccha, composed the work as an exposition of a treatise on Sanskrit poetics. Nandi reviews the Baroda manuscript (B) of 490 folios and the Pune manuscript (P) of 112 folios, noting that they descend from a common archetype but each contains lacunae and scribal mistakes. Collation shows that the Pune copy often preserves verses omitted in the Baroda copy, highlighting the need for a critical edition. Colophons date the copying of the text to samvat 1742, implying that Gunaratna lived in the second half of the seventeenth century. He names his preceptor as Vinayasamudragani and acknowledges studying many commentaries on the Kāvyaprakāśa; his homage to Śrīmad Gosvāmī and to Tīrthankaras indicates his Jain affiliation. Nandi surveys earlier attempts to date Gunaratna, noting conjectures by scholars like Jayaswal and Kapadia ranging from samvat 1610 to 1742, but argues for the later date based on manuscript evidence. He also discusses the broader intellectual milieu: Gunaratna draws on Jain grammatical tradition as well as non‑Jain poeticians, illustrating the syncretism characteristic of late medieval Jain scholarship. The article emphasises that producing a reliable edition of the Śāradīpikā would illuminate Jain contributions to Sanskrit poetics, particularly their engagement with rhetorical concepts like alaṅkāra, doṣa and rasa. Nandi’s preliminary study thus lays the groundwork for further research and textual reconstruction.