Somnolent Stras Sriptural Cmmentary In Svetambara Jainism

SR No.: 269690
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Paul Dundas
Publisher: Paul Dundas
Total Pages: 29
Language: English
Classification: Article
File Size: 4 MB

Page 28

100
PAUL DUNDAS
tells how Jinadasa, who fasted on astami and caturdast days, was imitated by his two bulls, Kambala and Sambala. Since this narrative occurs in the broader context of Mahavira's pre-enlightenment biography as treated by the Avasyaka Niryukti, Dharmasagara points to the fact that Jinadasa must have been a lay follower of Mahavīra's predecessor Parsva, which he takes as establishing the time-honoured nature of religious observances on caturdaśī days, a practice which the Paurnamıyakas were trying to emend. Cf. also SVVS, p. 79. 95 SVVS, verses 37 and 42 and pp. 28 and 41. See also PP, chapter 8, passim. 96 SVVS. p. 34. The Sthānanga Satra, sätra 208, Jambovijaya's reedition, pp. 113, describes three categories: inimical to scripture, inimical to its meaning and inimical to both. According to Abhayadeva, "meaning" here signifies the niryukti commentary. 97 SVVS, verses 38-9 and compare PP 8.64, p. 75. See Johannes Bronkhorst, "Two Literary Conventions of Classical India," Asiatische Studien / Etudes Asiatiques, 45, 1991, pp. 212-16, for the aphoristic sätra texts produced in the early common era becoming embedded within commentaries. 98 See Balbir, Avasyaka-Studien, pp. 45–6. Ludwig Alsdorf, "Jain Exegetical Literature and the History of the Jaina Canon," in A. N. Upadhye et al. (ed.), Mahavira and his Teachings, Bombay, 1977, pp. 1-8, argued that the bhāsyas are a versification of the early Prakrit prose commentarial tradition as represented by the cūrnis. This view has recently been challenged by B. K. Khadabadi, "Reflections on the Jaina Exegetical Literature," in Dhaky and Jain, Aspects of Jainology, Vol. 3: Pt. Dalsukhbhai Malvania Felicitation Volume, pp. 27-33. 99 SVVŚ, verses 41-2, with autocommentary. The scriptures involved in this process (the Jīvābhigama, Nandi and Prajñāpanā Sūtras) do not belong to the anga class of sutra. Their incorporation into the Bhagavati Sūtra was presumably effected at one of the councils where the scriptures were redacted. 100 SVVS, p.38 and p. 79. Dharmasagara exemplifies the polyvalency of Prakrit by discussing a riddle verse, the solution to which requires taking the word "saro" as equivalent to Sanskrit śara, "arrow," saras, “lake" and svara, “voice". Cf. also PP 8.146. It might be added that by the seventeenth century the Jain scriptures had come to be accused of imprecision and indeterminacy of meaning. See Satya Vrat, Studies in Jaina Sanskrit Literature, Delhi: Eastern Book Linkers, 1994, p. 181. 101 SVVS, pp. 86-99, discusses how information given in a sūtra, in this case the Prajñāpanā, can only be understood and contextualised fully with the aid of commentary. 102 SVVS, p. 41 and verses 48–9. 103 SVV, pp. 73, 79 and 91-2. Dharmasāgara quotes a verse from the Pancavastuka which states as a hermeneutic principle that the scriptural should be interpreted by scripture and that which is amenable to logic by logic (tam taha vakkhānijjam jahā jahā tassa avagamo hoi / āgamiam āgamenam juttīgammam juttie). See Haribhadra, Pancavastuka, Mumbai: Jinasasana Āradhana Trast, v.s. 2045, 4.191. 104 See Douglas Burton-Christie, The Word in the Desert: Scripture and the Quest for Holiness in Early Christian Monasticism, New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993, p. 23. In the Jain context, cf. the Oghaniryukti, ed. Bollée (see note 58), verse 611, for correct behaviour stabilising the meaning of a satra (suttatthathirikaranam vinao ...). 105 See Euan Cameron, The European Reformation, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991, pp. 142–4. For a recent perspective on this subject from an American Protestant background, see Stanley Hauerwas, Unleashing the Scriptures: Freeing the Bible from Captivity to America, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1993, the main contention of which is that (p. 3) "the Bible is not and should not be accessible to merely anyone, but rather it should only be made available to those who have undergone the hard discipline of existing as part of God's people." According to Hauerwas (p. 27), (sola