Agam 35 Chhed 02 Bruhatkalpa Sutra

SR No.: 002158
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: K C Lalwani
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas
Publication Year: 1979
Total Pages: 246
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Agam, Canon, F000, F025, & agam_kalpsutra
File Size: 13 MB

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xviii
Kalpa Sūtra
anyone of these courses seems inexplicable at this date and the callousness with which they preferred to leave the gap unbridged is somewhat startling. It is not even known if Bhadrabahu had any information about the Council and its deliberations, but it is pretty certain that even after the deliberations, no effort whatsoever was made to have his concurrence and have the texts checked by him. It appears that soon after his exodus to the south, Bhadrabahu was no more than a name in the north, though in the south, this foreigner's memory is still preserved in the Kannada literary tradition which holds him in the highest esteem. Connecting together the disconnected threads, the present writer cannot help saying that it was one more schism in the Jaina church of which the latest victim was Bhadrabahu, like Indrabhūti Gautama earlier, and the story of the impending famine which was circulated might have been a convenient fabrication. This appears plausible in view of the Digambara dominance in the south, while the Jaina church in the north is dominantly Śvetāmbara. This may be a further reason for the continued Digambara belief that all the traditional texts became extinct with Bhagavān Mahavira. At least it is not very convincing to think that a man of Bhadrabahu's stature was afraid of the famine and escaped to the south to save his own and a few other people's lives. Further research is, however, invited on this dubious item also. We have it on the authority of the medieval scholar Hemacandra that Bhadrabahu passed away 170 years after the liberation of Bhagavan Mahāvīra. Quoted below is the relevant couplet:
वीरमोक्षाद् वर्षशते सप्तत्यग्रे गते सति । भद्रवाहुरपि स्वामी ययौ स्वर्ग समाधिना ॥
Sixth in the line downward from Bhagavan Mahāvīra, Bhadrabahu has been attributed with the authorship of many works. At least three or four Agamas are attributed directly to his pen, but his particular association is said to be with the Cheda Sutras, of which at least three are due to him. Of the three Kalpa texts, he is said to have produced at least two, Bṛhat Kalpa and Pañca Kalpa. He was gifted with a superhuman memory which preserved the Agamic texts after Bhagavan Mahāvīra and helped their recording and subsequent propagation, without which perhaps Jainism