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{{Short description|Jain scholar monk}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2016}}
{{Use Indian English|date=February 2016}}
{{More citations needed|date=February 2016}}
{{Infobox religious biography
| honorific-prefix = [[Acharya]]
| name = Jinaratna
| image = 
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| religion = [[Jainism]]
| sect = [[Digambara]]
| official_name = 
| birth_name = 
| birth_date = 13th century
| birth_place = 
| death_date = 13th century
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}}
{{Jainism}}
'''Jinaratna''' (Jina·ratna; [[Hindi]]: जिनरत्न) was a [[Jainism|Jain]] scholar monk who composed ''[[The Epitome of Lilavati|Līlāvatīsāra]].'' He completed his poem in the year 1285 CE in Jabaliputra, western India, (modern [[Jhalor]] in [[Rajasthan]]). It is an epitome of a much larger work called ''[[The Story of the Final Emancipation of Lilávati|{{IAST|Nivvāṇalīlāvaīkahā}}]]'' composed in Jain [[Maharashtri]], a Prakrit language, in 1036 by [[Jineshvara]], also a Jain monk.

What little is known about Jinaratna, he states himself in the colophon he placed at the end of his poem, in which he gives the lineage of the succession of monastic teachers and pupils from [[Vardhamana]], the teacher of Jineshvara who was the author of ''[[The Story of the Final Emancipation of Lilávati|{{IAST|Nivvāṇalīlāvaīkahā}}]],'' to another Jineshvara who was Jinaratna's own teacher.

Jinaratna studied literature, logic and the canonical texts of the [[Shvetambara|White-Clad Jains]], with Jineshvara and other monks. In his colophon he acknowledges the help he received from others in the preparation and correction of the text of ''[[The Epitome of Lilavati|Līlāvatīsāra]].''

Jinaratna in his introductory verses to ''[[The Epitome of Lilavati|Līlāvatīsāra]]'' describes how his interest in Jineshvara's poem was stimulated by his own teacher. Jinaratna states that he began to write his epitome at the request of those who wished to concentrate on its narrative alone.

By writing in [[Sanskrit]], the pan-Indian language of learned discourse, Jinaratna gave ''[[The Epitome of Lilavati|Līlāvatīsāra]]'' a far wider readership than was possible for Jineshvara's ''[[The Story of the Final Emancipation of Lilávati|{{IAST|Nivvāṇalīlāvaīkahā}}]],'' since it was written in the Prakrit Jain Maharashtri, a language with a more restricted currency.

Jinaratna displays his mastery of Sanskrit poetics by interspersing complex lyric metres throughout his poem. Not only does Jinaratna employ rare works and unusual grammatical forms drawn from the Sanskrit lexicons and grammars, but he also incorporates into his poem words taken from contemporary spoken vernaculars. Jinaratna's language in the narrative portions of the poem is fast moving and direct, but it is far more ornate in his descriptions of cities, mountains, desert wilderness, battles, festivals, and other topics with which a Sanskrit epic should be embellished.

==English translations==
The [[Clay Sanskrit Library]] has published a translation of ''[[The Epitome of Lilavati|Līlāvatīsāra]]'' by R.C.C. Fynes under the title of ''The Epitome of Queen Lilávati'' (two volumes).

==See also==
*[[Līlāvatīsāra]] (The Epitome of Lilavati)
*[[Nivvāṇalīlāvaīkahā]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*[http://www.claysanskritlibrary.org/ Clay Sanskrit Library] (official page)

{{Jain Gurus}}
{{Jainism topics}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Sanskrit poets]]
[[Category:Indian Jain monks]]
[[Category:13th-century Indian Jain poets]]
[[Category:13th-century Jain monks]]
[[Category:13th-century Indian monks]]
[[Category:Poets from Rajasthan]]

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