40	CUJARATA AND ITS LITERATURE
of Samskrta grammar. He acquired considerable influence
over Siddharaja, which served to protect the Jamas from
the indignities of jealous Brahmanas who were powerful
at court.
IV
On Siddharaja's death, Kumarapala came to the throne
in 1143, and Hemacandra went back to his literary work.
Besides the appendices to his grammar, he composed
Anekftrthasamgraha, a dictionary of homonyms; Chandonu-
s'Usana, a work on prosody; Abhidhnnacintnmani, a diction-
ary of synonyms; S'eshakhyanUmamUla; Des'innmamnla, a
lexicon of non-Samskrta words; and Nighantus'csha in three
volumes, two of them dealing with medicine and botany,
and the third, with jewels.
About 1157 he came in intimate contact with king
Kumarapala, who had successfully completed a series of
campaigns  against  his neighbours.   The king,  a  man
of   culture   and about-sixty two years old, easily   fell
under the influence  of  the great scholar.   The Jainas
accepted the king as their co-religionist. Jaina authors of
the succeeding centuries have taken delight in dwelling
upon this incident to show that the king adopted the Jaina
faith to the exclusion of the worship of Somanatha,   the
tutelary god of the Calukyas.   This claim is pitched too
high.   Reliable evidence establishes that Kumarapala was
a Saiva till 1169, four years prior to his death; and that he
was not converted to Jainism, if by that is meant that he
gave up his family devotion to Saivism.   It is equally well-
established that he accepted Hemacandra as a counsellor,
and went to Jaina temples; that as a result of Hema-
candra's advice, he issued edicts prohibiting the selling
and eating of meat, and traffic in intoxicating beverages.
That he gave up meat and wine, gambling, lechery and the
chase, and took the vows which a devout Jaina takes, is well
founded.    Ahinsa,   non-violence,   one   of   the   cardinal
principles of Aryan ethics, was for the first time made the
basis of active social and political reform by Kumarapala.
Heraacandra's literary activities continued even after
he became the guide, philosopher and friend of Kumarapala