Pravachanasara

SR No.: 003289
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: A N Upadhye
Publisher: Shrimad Rajchandra Ashram
Publication Year: 1964
Total Pages: 612
Language: Hindi, Sanskrit
Classification: Book_Devnagari
File Size: 16 MB

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Pravacanasara
apparently slackened their ascetic practices, was not acceptable to those that had migrated to the South. Here is the visible seed of the division of the Jaina church under the denominations of Svetambara and Digambara, as they came to be known later on. It was a practical step, on the part of the Svetambaras, that they tried to restore the sacred texts as much as it was possible under the then prevailing circumstances; and it is this canon, after passing through various vicissitudes, that was committed to writing, almost as it is to-day, under Devarddhigani, at Valabhi, in the year 983 after the nirvana, of Mahavira. The Digambaras, in their zeal for the genuine canon, did neither restore it themselves, nor could they accept the canon as shaped by the Pataliputra samgha, with the result that the community, as a whole, came to lose the sacred canon. But, when we take into consideration the ancient method of study, that the teachers and pupils relied more on their memories than on the material accessories of knowledge like MSS. etc., it is imaginable that the leading teachers among the Digambaras, in the South, might have utilised, on such an occasion, the knowledge of what they had studied from their teachers; and, to satisfy the religious needs of the community in the south, they might have composed small treatises, not as the sacred canon, which, as they understood that term, was lost beyond recovery, but as mere memory-notes of what they had received traditionally from their teachers; and it is to this class of literature that the works of authors like Puspadanta, Bhutabali, Vaṭṭakera, Kundakunda and Sivärya belong. Their works are written in a language, which inherited many dialectal characteristics of AMg., in which the traditional canon was originally preserved; why, between the works of these authors and the works of the Svetambara canon, we have many common ideas, nay common verses; these common verses do not imply [p. 124:] mutual borrowing, but prove a common heritage of both. These things clearly explain the AMg. elements in Jaina Sauraseni. The strong Sauraseni colour must have been due to central Indian influence;2 and, as the Digambaras continued their literary activities in the extreme South, their dialect could remain immune, at least for a long time, from the onslaughts of Mähäräṣṭri. That the Digambaras were partial to Sauraseni is also clear from the manner in which they enriched the Kannada vocabulary under Prakritic influence: and when we see forms like sakkada samskṛta in Kannada, we are tempted to say that it was Sauraseni grammar that helped them to transform Sk. words and then to import them into Kannada. Further, the Sk. influence on Jaina Saurasent can be easily explained by the fact that the Jainas, in the South, were soon driven by circumstances around to adopt Sanskrit; and we find that Jaina authors like Samantabhadra, Püjyapäda, Anantavirya, Akalañka and others cultivated chaste Sanskrit. This strong inclination towards Sk. and the absence of the reservoir of the AMg. canon brought Jaina Saurasent under Sk. influence. The Svetambaras in the North could not show much influence of Sk. on their
1 The problem raised by the common verses between Mulācāra and Avasyaka-niryukti and between Prakirṇakas and Bhagavati Aradhana will be taken up in a separate paper. 2 See Chatterjee: Origin and Development of Bengali Language, pp. 60-1. 3 The apabhramsa-prakarana, chapter VIII, of the Kannada Grammar, Sabdamanidarpana of Keśirāja, gives rules of corrupting Sk. words; these rules remind us of similar ones in Prakrit grammars, some of which are special to Sauraseni.