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

Page 56

Introductian
conversions as we see from the traditional stories associated with Samantabhadra and Akalanka. The task before Kundakunda must have been really a great one. The Digambaras had denounced the Jaina canon as formed at Paṭaliputra by Svetämbaras after the famine in Magadha was over; and by about the beginning of the Christian era, so far as the Digambara Text-tradition was concerned, the important texts, as a whole, had fallen into oblivion. Kundakunda had to respond. to the religious needs of the community; and to meet this situation he must have composed small tracts in Prakrit mainly based on whatever traditional Text-knowledge was inherited from early teachers. The traditional aspect of Kundakunda's works is clear from the fact that his works have some common verses with some texts of the Svetämbara canon; being a common property in early days they have been preserved by both the sections independently. On the one hand Kundakunda stands as the converging centre of early text-tradition and on the other his works themselves have given rise to commentaries and commentators thus diverging into a budding and exhuberent growth of Jaina dogmatic discussions of various kinds.
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3. KUNDAKUNDA'S WORKS
KUNDAKUNDA AS THE AUTHOR OF 84 PAHUDAS.-Kundakunda has a great halo of literary activity, and the tradition attributes to him not less than eighty four treatises called Pähudas or Prabhṛtas. The title pähuda, a present, indicates, according to one interpretation, that these books are composed or compiled with a spiritual purpose, and they are merely devotional presents to the Higher Self; Jayasena explains the word thus: yatha ko'pi Devadattaḥ raja-darśanārtham kimeit särabhūtam vastu rājñe dadāti tat präbhrtam bhanyate | tatha paramātmārādhaka-puruṇasya nirdosi-paramätma-raja-dardanärtham idamapi éästram präbhrtam/.1 This is how commentators are skilful in giving certain meanings. The real traditional meaning appears to be different: Pähuda means an adhikara, i.e. a section in which a particular topic is treated or discussed. Some Svetambara works, too, have this designation, for instance, Joni-pahuda, Siddha-pahuḍa3 etc. That Kundakunda wrote 84 Pahuḍas is merely a floating tradition, and I am not aware of any statement to that effect from his commentators etc. The number is not at all incredible [p. 25:] in view of the fact that some of his Pähudas are very small tracts: Sutta-pähuda, for instance, contains only 27 gathãs. The circumstances also were favourable for Kundakunda to compose numerous small tracts or prakaraņas. The Jaina community in the South, in the days of Kundakunda, was much isolated from the main stock in Magadha and other parts. The community, as a whole, had its religious needs. Digambaras did not attempt a fresh compilation of the canon after the famine. was over; and the canon, as shaped at Paṭaliputra by some of their brethren in the North who came to be known as Svetämbaras, was denounced by the Digambaras
1 See his commentary on Samayasära, p. 555-6 (RJS edition); elsewhere, on p. 5, he interprets Samaya-pāhuḍa thus: prabhṛtam sāram sāraḥ śuddhāvastḥā samayasyātmanaḥ prabhṛatam samayaprabhṛtam athavā samaya eva prābhṛatam |.
2 See Gommaṭasāra Jīvakāṇḍa, gāthā 341 (SBJ V); ahiyāro pāhuḍayam eyattho i, e. adhikāra and pähuda are synonyms.
3 Jaina Granthavali, pp. 62 & 66.