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ON THE ANTIQUITY AND ORIGINAL PARTS OF THE "PUNDARTKA ADHYAYANA", SUTRAKRTĀNGA (11)
M. A. DHAKY
The seven appendices forming Book II of the second angawork Sutraksta, by and large happen to he not only fairly ancient; they are also interesting from various research stand-points. Of these the first adhyayana entitk d "Pundarika" is in part more ancient than the remaining six. It apparently has not been analysed or studied in depth notwithstanding its admissibly good translations in English and in Gujarātı (and now also in Hindi) are for some years available.
The "Pundarika-adhyayana"2 in its present shape is the result of three major efforts and hence three distinct strata correspondingly of three separate periods. Its oldest and hence the original part is represented by the opening sūtras 638-643, comparable in antiquity to some of the relatively older parts of Book I of the Āraränga
The Pundarika chapter pertains to an allegory of a lotus pond (puşkarani) full of white lotuses (pundarik is) of which the taller, larger and the most magnificent grown at the central area of the pond is the main focus, the motival maxim, around which the repetitious phrases of the text in very archaic style are made to revolve. As the allegorical essence purports, four presumptuous persons coming in turn from four cardinal directions, and each wanting to get the great central lotus, attempied to reach it by entering into the pond and each in his own turn got stuck in the mud, even as each one had condemned his predecessor as ignorant, inefficient, etc., claiming, of course, the opposite for himself. The fifth one, a genuine samaritan (bhikkhü), who came from the inter
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