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

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182
SACRED LITERATURE OF THE JAINS
This shews that their author attempted to give an encyclopædic, but systematic, review of everything that appeared necessary to him as a means of information in reference to the sources and forms of a correct knowledge and understanding of the sacred texts. In this way [2] he could present his readers with a hermeneutical introduction.659 These two works are admirably adapted to the use of any one who, having completed a collection or redaction of them, then seeks for light concerning the nature of sacred knowledge itself. The statement of the scholiast on the Nandi has no little internal probability 860 in asserting that Devavācaka, i.e. Devarddhigaại himself, was their author. Further more, the list of teachers in the commencement of the Nandi and also in the commencement of mülas 2, as we shall soon see, breaks off861 with Dasagani, whom the scholiast states to be the teacher of Devavācaka, author of the Nandi. There is, however, no external support for this conclusion which is not borne out by any information to be derived from the contents. In fact, the contrary view seems to result from these sources of our knowledge ; see p. 17 ff. The anuyogady. contains all manner of statements, which would synchronize with the date of Devarddhigaņi, 980 Vira, i.e. fifth or sixth century A.D. But I possess no information which would lead me to connect the composition of the Anuyogady, especially with him ; and the difference in the terminology militates against the probability of both texts being the production of one and the same author ; see pp. 9,11,21; That the Nandi is anterior to the Anuyogady. is made probable by some passages of the latter work, which appear to have been extracted from the Nandı. But the fact that the Anuyogady, is mentioned in the anangapavittha list in the Nandi (sce p. 12), makes for the opposite conclusion.
We find references to the Nandi in the remarks of the redactor scattered here and there in the angas and upangas ; and especial attention is directed to the statement of the contents of the 12 angas found in the N. This statement is found in greater detail in part 2 of anga 4. Hence the fact that in these references of the redactor, the Nandi and not anga 4 is cited. We do not read jaha samavāye, but jahā Nandle ; see 284, 352 (accord, to Leumann, also Bhag. 25,3 Rajapr. p. 243) which must be regarded as a proof that the Nandi was the authority on which these references were based. The treatment of the subject in anga 4
859 "A glossary of the above-named sutras and a description of five Janas" is the
somewhat peculiar description of the contents of the Nandisutra by Käsináth (p.
227) 850 See also Bhāu Dāji in the Journal Bombay Branch R. As S. 9, 151. 861 See Jacobi, Kalpas. p. 15, note 2.