Sacred Literature of Jains

SR No.: 006969
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Ganeshchandra Lalwani, Satyaranjan Banerjee
Publisher: Jain Bhawan
Publication Year: 1999
Total Pages: 250
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 22 MB

Page 142

134
SACRED LITERATURE OF THE JAINS
The text begins with the legend (and in fact in the customary formula : tenaṁ kālenam) that Iṁdabhūti, at the time of king Jiyasattu in Mihilā, requested that he should be instructed (by Mahav.) in ......, and then follows in 15 gāthas750 a complete statement of the contents of the 20 or the 33 sub-divisions in books 1, 2, 10. The redaction is, therefore, the result of the activity of one individual. Books 10 and 15 close with the formula tti bemi, which we met with in the case of angas 1-3. Is it possible from this fact to conjecture [406] that originally they existed separately, before the author incorporated them in his work ?751 In 1, 3 there is a reference in the text to the Jambuddivapannatti which here in turn cites our text. I here reproduce from my treatise cited above a short statement of the contents.
Book 1 in 8 chapters, mamdalāi, the circles traversed annually by the sun,752 viz. :
1. vaddhāvaddhi muhuttanam, increase and decrease of the number
of hours for day and night.
in the
2. addhamamdalasamthii, the position (of the two
semicircle traversed by each daily...
3. ke te cinnaṁ pariyarai ? how does one sun traverse the space
traversed by the other ? and how great is this space ? . . 4. amtaraṁ kim caraṁti ? in what intervening space do the two . suns course ? 5. ogāhai kevaiyam ? how great a surface does each dip into
(illuminate)?
;
6. kevaiyaṁ vikampai ? how large a tract does each pass over
every day? 7. mamdalāņam saṁthāņe, the figures of the orbits described by
them. 8. vikkhambho, compass and extension of the revolutions of the
sun.
750 Sec. 1. c. pp. 261, 275, 285. 751 See the next note and note 1, page 407. 752 mandalappaveso is enumerated in the Nandi as a separate text. 753 See Colebrooke, Miscell. 2,223-4 in reference to the two suns of the Jains, etc.