Amarakosha

The Amarakosha (Sanskrit: अमरकोश, IAST: Amarakośa) from amara "immortal" and kosha "treasure, casket, pail, collection, dictionary", also Namalinganushasana (Sanskrit: नामलिङ्गानुशासनम्, IAST: Nāmaliṅgānuśāsanam) from nama-linga-anu-shasana "instruction concerning nouns and gender" is a thesaurus of Sanskrit written by the Jain or Buddhist scholar Amarasimha. Amarasimha was one of the Navaratnas ("nine gems") at the court of Chandragupta II, a Gupta king who reigned around AD 400. Some sources indicate that he belonged to the period of Vikramaditya of 7th century.

• The following Subhashitha says about this:

ಧನ್ವಂತರಿ ಕ್ಷಪಣಕಾಮರಸಿಂಹ ಶಂಕು ವೇತಾಲಭಟ್ಟ ಘಟಕರ್ಪರ ಕಾಲಿದಾಸಾಃ

ಖ್ಯಾತೋ ವರಾಹಮಿಹಿರೋ ನೃಪತೇಸ್ಸಭಾಯಾಂ ರತ್ನಾನಿ ವೈವರರುಚಿರ್ನವ ವಿಕ್ರಮಸ್ಯ

• Its transliteration in English is:

Dhanvantari kșapaņakāmarasimha śaňku vētālabhațța ghațakarpara kālidāsāħ|

Khyātō varāhamihirō nŗpatēssabhāyām ratnāni vaivararucirnava vikramasya||

• In Devanagari

धन्वन्तरिक्षपणकामरसिंह शङ्कु वेताल भट्ट घटकर्पर कालिदासाः ।

ख्यातो वराहमिहिरो नृपतेः सभायां रत्नानि वै वररुचि र्नव विक्रमस्य ॥

When Jagadguru Shri Shankaracharya was traveling throughout India for propagating his Advaitic philosophy, he wanted to meet Amarasimha for a debate. When Amarasimha found out about this, he was scared by the possibility of a debate with Shri Shankaracharya and burned all of his collections. Upon learning about this Shri Shankara rushed to Amarasimhan's house. By that time all of his collections had turned into ashes except 'Amarakosha'. And Shri Shankaracharya saved Amarakosha from fire. This story can be seen in "Shankara dig Vijayam".