Saddharma Pundarika

SR No.: 007677
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: H Kern
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1884
Total Pages: 2546
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 46 MB

Page 556

INTRODUCTION.
xlvii
Buddhism, as can be expected from any sect. We must leave to future researches to work out the details, but I hope to have removed the doubts, entertained by some scholars, about the independence of the Gaina religion and the value of its sacred books as trustworthy documents for the elucidation of its early history.
It remains for me to add a few remarks about the two works which have been translated in this book.
The Åkârânga Satra, or, as it is sometimes called, the Sâmâyika', is the first of the eleven Argas. It treats of the âkâra, or conduct, which falls under the last of the four heads, or anuyogas, into which the sacred lore is divided, viz. Dharmakatha, Ganita, Dravya, and Karanakarana. The Åkârânga Sutra contains two books, or Srutaskandhas, very different from each other in style and in the manner in which the subject is treated. The subdivisions of the second book being called Kulås, or appendices, it follows that only the first book is really old. That it was considered so even in later times, is apparent from a remark of Sîlanka, who wrote the commentary, which is the oldest one extant?. For speaking of the mangala or auspicious sentence which, according to a current theory, must occur at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of each work, Sîlänka points out as such the first sentence of the first lesson of the first lecture, the first sentence of the fifth lesson of the fifth lecture, and the latter half of the 16th verse in the fourth lesson of the eighth lecture of the first book. It is evident that he regarded the Åkärânga Sútra as ending with the last-named passage, which is the last but one of the first book.
The first book, then, is the oldest part of the Åkârârga Satra; it is probably the old Åkârânga Satra itself to which other treatises have been added. For it is complete in
* See Professor Weber's remarks on the possible bearing of this name in the treatise I had so often occasion to quote, p. 243 seqq.
* It was not, however, the first commentary, for Stlänka mentions one by Gandhahastin.
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