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JAIN JOURNAL
Vol. XLIII
No. 1 July
_
2008
2008
CHRONOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT
OF JAIN CANONICAL COMMENTARY LITERATURE
Vandana Mehta
The canonical commentaries are very important and vast. I feel to write a systematic chronological order of the commentaries which can be utilized by the Research scholars for their research work. Regarding this, S. R. Banerjee had published an article on the 'Chronological Development of Jain Literature'in Jain Journal Vol. XXXV, No. 4 April 2001, Calcutta and also reprinted in his book Prolegomena to Prakritica et Jainica, Calcutta, 2005 pp. 197-225. In this article the author had covered almost all the Jain literature. But, what was left out untouched of Jain literature was the commentary of canonical literature. Therefore, on his advice I am trying to present the chronological development of commentry of Jain canonical literature and it is my belief that it will be of some help to some scholars.
It has been the tradition of the Indian writers to write down the commentaries on text to reveal the hidden meanings of the text and the same is true particularly of Jain canons. The canonical commentries are very vast in itself. These commentaries are mainly divided into five categories.
1. Niryukti 2. Bhāşya 3. Cūrņi 4. Samskrta sīkā 5. Commentaries in Folk/Regional languages (lokabhāṣā)
1. Niryukti-- The Niryuktis are the first type of commentaries on the Jain canonical literature. They are in verse form. These commentaries / Niryuktis were composed in 5th-6th centuries A.D in Prākrta and Acārya Bhadrabāhu (second) is regarded as Niryuktikāra.
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