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Studies in Jainology, Prakrit
7
VIJAHANĀ AND YAPANIYA
SAMGHA
Jain Education International
The mode of obsequies or disposal of the dead is found to have been different among the principle religious communities of the world. At times it has also been different in the same religious community in different periods of its history. Early Jaina texts refer to some customs of obsequies like leaving (according to the instructions of the King) the dead body of an ascetic in a hollow, lake or flowing river, or by the side of these places, leaving exposed on the open ground, cremating etc. But Vijahanā is a very peculiar and interesting mode of obsequies that was in yogue in an early community of Jaina monks. It also forms the subject of an exlusive Chapter in an carly Jaina canonical text.
Vijahanā forms the 40th and last Chapter (Adhikara) in the Bhaktapratyākhyāna Section of the Mulārādhana2 of Śivakotyācārya (c. 1st century A.D.), an important and bulky Prakrit text belonging to the early stratum of the pro-canon of the Digambaras. This Adhikara contains description of Vijahanā, a mode of disposal of the dead body of the Ksapaka (the Aradhaka monk) who dies a Pandita-marana (wise man's death) viz, the Bhaktapratyākhyānamarana i.c., death by systematically abstaining from food. This description spreads over some 34 gāhās (Nos. 1966 to 2000),
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