Hemraj Pande information

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Hemraj Pande (Hemarāja/Hemrāj Pande) (17th century CE) was an Indian author belonging to the Digambara Jain Agrawal merchant caste^[1][2] & Garg Gotra.^[3] He was from Agra.^[4] He had a daughter named Jainulade(Jaini) who came to be mother of another poet legend Bulakidas making Hemraj Bulakis maternal Grandfather.^[5] He had written commentaries on numerous Jain texts.^[6] Being a disciple of Rupchand Pande, a thinker who had settled in Agra in 1635 & delivered sermons on Gommatasara.^[7][8] As a ‘pande’ – a vernacular form of the Sanskrit paṇḍitā – or ‘pandit‘, Hemraj could have been a lay Jain administering the temple, appointed by a Bhattaraka.^[9]

He wrote a commentary on Pravachanasara of Kundakunda in 1652 based on the commentary on Samayasara by Rajmall.^[6] He also wrote the differences between Jain sects, Digambara and Svetambara, in Chaurasi Bol (Eighty-Four Disputes) in the same year.^[7] He wrote these texts on the request of Kanvarpal or Kaurnpal of Agra.^[7] Many of his other works ,apart from the ones in the list, are also archived & can be found in some of the religious book archives of North India.^[10] Hemraj was a close friend of Kaurapal or Kunvarapal, who is mentioned by Banarsidas in his autobiography, the Ardha-kathānaka.^[11] Surprisingly, Banarsidas does not include Hemraj among the prominent Digambara scholars in Agra.^[12] Hemraj is first mentioned by Hirananda, who describes him as ‘wise and cultivated’ in his Samavaraṇavidhāna.^[13]

He wrote some original works in Brajbhasha.^[14] He also translated Bhaktamara Stotra, a sixth century Jain composition, of Manatunga.^[14] This was done in the style of translation of Kalyanamandir stotra's by Banarsidas.^[14] He seems to have specialised in writing commentaries on texts by other scholars.