Toramāṇa in Kuvalayamālā

Summary

K. P. Mitra critiques N. C. Mehta’s claim that a passage in the Jaina romance Kuvalayamālā refers to the Hūṇa king Toramāṇa and his supposed Jaina guru Harigupta. Mitra points out that Udyotanasūri composed the Kuvalayamālā around 775 CE—some 260 years after Toramāṇa’s reign—when memories of him would have faded. Udyotana was a Deccan author, and there is no evidence that legends of the Hūṇa king were current in the south. The Jaisalmer palm‑leaf manuscript reads “Siri Torarīyena,” while the later Pune paper manuscript has “Torāminena”; Mitra suggests that the latter may be a copyist’s alteration. He argues that Torarīya is likely a nondescript prince rather than the historical Toramāṇa. Mitra also questions Mehta’s identification of Harigupta. Mehta suggested that Toramāṇa’s guru Harigupta, a scion of the Gupta family, later became the guru of Devagupta of Malwa. Mitra counters that Devagupta of Malwa flourished around 605 CE, a century after Toramāṇa; Harigupta would have to be more than 100 years old to mentor both. He also notes that a copper coin reading “Mahārāja Devaguptasya” cannot be linked to Devagupta of Malwa because it dates to the late fifth century, whereas Devagupta was active in the early seventh century. Finally, Mitra stresses that Toramāṇa, a Hūṇa invader known for his cruelty, would hardly be commemorated by a Jaina writer. The lack of contextual evidence means that Mehta’s identifications are speculative. Mitra concludes that the passage in Kuvalayamālā refers to an otherwise unknown Torarīya and that caution is required in linking literary names to historical figures. The article therefore urges scholars to examine manuscript readings critically and to avoid drawing sweeping historical conclusions from tenuous textual parallels.