Studies in Jain Literature

SR No.: 001868
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: V M Kulkarni
Publisher: Shardaben Chimanbhai Educational Research Centre
Publication Year: 2001
Total Pages: 114
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Literature, & Story
File Size: 14 MB

Page 537

A BRIEF SURVEY OF JAIN LITERATURE.... 519 duties, differing not in kind, but in degree. The five anuvratas are preparatory as they are meant to prepare him for observing mahavratas. The discipline laid down for the householder is intended to liberate him from the domestic ties which bind him to his wife and children to his land and wealth. After completing the period of probation as it were, he quits the house, embarks upon the mahavratas which he observes strictly without any exception or concession. He disciplines his body and mind by overcoming 22 parisahas (troubles and sufferings, such as hunger, thirst, cold, heat, etc.). He observes five samitis, carefulness in walking (irya-for example, he avoids injury even to insects), in speech (bhasa, for instance, he avoids censure of others, self-praise, talk about women, etc.); while on his begging tour (esana samiti) he accepts food free from all impurities; he observes carefulness in taking up and placing his things (adana-niksepana) and in answering call of nature (uccara-prasravana). He cultivates 28 mulagunas, fundamental qualities, as are expected of a monk, and goes through 14 gunasthanas (stages of spiritual progress) and ultimately becomes a siddha, a soul liberated from the cycle of birth and death for all timess. Now, regarding the present anthology of selections from Jain texts : The Sahitya Akademi asked me to compile and edit a selection from Jain texts. As the Jain literature is vast and varied and the Jain texts are composed in Prakrit, Sanskrit and Apabhramsa languages, I wrote to the Sahitya Akademi seeking elucidation as to the scope for my anthology. I was informed that in the Sahitya Akademi Anthology Series, the Kavya, Nataka and Subhasita volumes include selections from poems, plays and Subhasitas from Jain writers and therefore I might leave out poems, plays, Alankara and Natya works and also general Niti and didactic works and that I might also leave out technical works like Mathematics, and that I might deal with Prakrit and Sanskrit Jain texts in Agama, Logic and Metaphysics, religious discipline, Puranic Literature on Tirthankaras and so on. Keeping the above guidelines in mind an attempt has been made in this anthology, to select the extracts in such a way as to cover some of the most important Jain texts in Prakrit and Sanskrit languages both of the Svetambaras and the Digambaras, the two principal sects of the Jains. The passages picked out are not necessarily the best but it is hoped that they very well illustrate the quality and variety of the Jain literature briefly surveyed in the Introduction. In conclusion, I tender grateful thanks to Prof. Dalsukhabhai D. Malvania for his valuable suggestions regarding the general plan of the anthology and to the authorities of the Sahitya Akademi for giving me an opportunity to compile this Anthology and for publishing it.