Ancient Jaina Hymns

SR No.: 034743
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Charlotte Krause
Publisher: Oriental Institute
Publication Year: 1952
Total Pages: 184
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 13 MB

Page 102

ANCIENT JAINA HYMNS is also known as the "Pākşika-stuti”. It is possible that our poet, whose name and whereabouts are not known, tried to emulate that popular piece of poetry and its fascinating tingle of sounds.
Yet while Jinakusala Sūri's stuti is in honour of Pārsvanātha, the present hymn celebrates Mahāvīra, the last Tirthankara, in its first quarter.
The object of eulogy in the fourth quarter is likewise a different one. In Jinakusala. Sūri's stuti, it is the "Sāsana-devatā” quite generally, while our poet addresses himself to the goddess “Vairotyā”, whom he visualizes, with extraordinary vividness, as a snake deity of militant qualities and of an appearance fit to fill an adversary's heart with terror, whom he seems to invoke in a spirit of tantric ecstasy and expectation.
Jaina Literature knows several goddesses of this name, as under:--
1. In the shape of "Vairoti”, it designates the Śāsana-devi of Vimalanātha, the 13th Tirthaikara, in Digambara literature. She is represented as "harivarņā”, mounted on a snake (“gonasa”), and holding snakes in her four hands. In Svetāmbara literature, Vimalanātha's female attendant, described as being of the same colour, but seated on a lotus, and holding a single snake, bow, arrow, and noose in her hands, is referred to as “Viditā”, or “Vijay?".4 The male
(1) "Purņa Kşema-Vallabha-Vilāsa", Neemach, V. S. 1990, Part II, p. 16 ff.
(2) Loc. cit., p. 22.
(3) Cp. B. C. Bhattacharya, “The Jaina Iconography” Punjab Oriental Series No. 26, Lahore, 1939, p. 133.
(4) Nirvāṇakalikā, edited by M. Bh. Jhaveri, Nirnaya Sägara Press, Bombay, A. D. 1926, p. 35.
66