Agam 05 Ang 05 Study Of Bhagvati Vyakhya Prajnapti Sutra

Author(s): Suzuko Ohira
Publisher: Prakrit Text Society Ahmedabad

Page 108

154
!
155
156
same stage, i.e., the fourth canonical period.
The number of the abodes of all beings in the three worlds is reported in I. 5.43, which is accompanied by quotation gathas. Its summarized account is repeated in VI.6.243 and referred to in XII.7.457. This topic is used in all cases as an introduction to open a topic of discussion offered in the same sutra or in the subsequent sutra. The Prajnapana II (Sthana), which is thoroughly acquainted with the number of jivas' abodes, approaches this problem from a different angle. One of the six gathas quoted in 1.5.43 is also quoted in the T.S. (Tattvarthadhigamasutra) .2 bhaṣya. All these texts should be placed in the fourth-fifth canonical stages.
78
XIII.4.474 records the extensions of 7 earths and the number of hellish abodes in some earths, while explaining hellish beings in the context of the karma theory (cf. E-2). The information of narakas as such is of course fully known to, for instance, the Jivajivabhigama 65-70. The date of this text will be ultimately determined in the context of the karma theory in E-2.
XIX.7.657 considers the number of the abodes of devas in various classes and the kinds of materials with which these abodes are built, which are known to the other Pannatti texts. We can place this text in the fourth-fifth stages. VII.5.330 enumerates four devalokas as an explanation of the content of the previous sutra which was composed in the fifth period (cf. D-2c, D-3). V.9.226 offers the subclassification of devas in this and that class. This text is accompanied by a gatha summarizing the contents of Udde's aka 9 which contains some sutras composed in the fifth period. Both texts thus fall in the final canonical stage. I.1.19 describes the beautiful wood regions of the Vyantaras by way of explaining Vyantaraloka, where some of those who did not take vows may be born as a consequence of their unwillingly suffered parisahas (cf. D-3). Here it gives the minimum and maximum life span of Vyantaras, which is known, for instance, to the Prajna pana IV.268. The description of Vyantaraloka offered in the Prajnapana II.116 is all inclusive. The date of this text will again be determined in D-3.
(3) Tamaskaya and Krsnaraji
157 VI.5.240 pertaining to Tamaskaya or black body, VI.5.241 pertaining to Kṛṣṇaraji or black field and VI.8.248 pertaining to the eight earths share the common gatha located at the end of VI.8.248. This gatha considers whether gross one-sensed beings do or do not exist in Tamaskaya, Kṛṣṇaraji and the eight earths. And in all these three sutras common questions are posed, e.g., whether houses, and villages, etc., exist there, whether clouds and thunder exist there and who would cause them, whether gross one-sensed beings exist there, and whether the Jyotiskas exist there. These sutras must have therefore been