Repetition In Jaina Nrative Literature

SR No.: 269673
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Klaus Bruhn
Publisher: Klaus Bruhn
Total Pages: 49
Language: English
Classification: Article
File Size: 6 MB

Page 27

Repetition in Jaina narrative literature
53
(12) Employment of special terms, symbols, and typographical
devices, e.g. in discussing a subject like the niksepa 63.
§ 17. Miscellanea
In order not to overburden the footnotes we have reserved a few items for the present section. (1) The problem of «niryuktis » etc. focusses attention on the
difference between « ancient works >> and « ancient accounts on ancient works ». A perusal of A. Weber's survey of the canonical literature (Ind. Stud. 16-17) will demonstrate the importance of such accounts. These, whether speculative (18 infra) or realistic, legendary or historical, erroneous or correct, are a factor to be reckoned with. It must be added that secondary elements (announcements, résumés, etc.) may be contained in the works themselves, e.g. in niryukti-bhāsya texts. For the secondary works, secondary texts, and secondary elements we use the term « criticism » (« writing about other works »). Accordingly, we can describe the issue as the field of ancient « critical activities » as well as of the « interaction of writing and criticism ». Furthermore we have to distinguish between descriptive and normative criticism, between long expositions and minimal statements (« 10 niryuktis »), between discussions and redactional or organizational activities (labelling a work as a « mūlasūtra » subdividing a work on one or more than one level). Refer also
to § 13 supra and to Āv Studies I, p. 13, fn. 5. (2) We have tentatively introduced a distinction between « work »
and <text ». The former is a well-defined literary composition; the latter is a part of a work, an ad hoc compilation (Gebrauchsliteratur, etc.), or one of several different versions of a literary composition the exact form of which varies from case to case. In addition, « text» can be used as a general term and also in the sense of « wording ». Considerations of this type must be distinguished from the problem of manuscriptological units as
being different from literary units 64. (3) Our typology of repetition phenomena does not consider the
problem of de facto repetition (identical wording / similar wording / identical content) which belongs to a different parameter. In the case of varņaka-repetition it is for example possible that varnakas are actually repeated (completely or in part).
63. BHATT, Ni., pp. 143-47. 64. C. TRIPĀȚHI, CJMS, 3. 4.