Agam 05 Ang 05 Study Of Bhagvati Vyakhya Prajnapti Sutra

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

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of Jaina thought who attempts to elucidate the history and development of early or even earliest Jaina teachings. We shall elaborate this point by finally adducing some considerations on the concepts of karma and jiva.
Among the most different epistemological, ontological, soteriological etc. theories incorporated into traditional Jaina lore, and especially among the few central concepts and theories constituting the very core of Jaina philosophy, the karma-theory is a conspicuous example of a doctrine the development of which testifies to the evolution of Jainism as a whole from rather unsophisticated, even primitive roots to the extremely elaborated casuistics of later dogmatics. The approach of Dr.OHIRA enables anybody interested in the development of this theory to trace and focus on the different streams of soteriology and natural philosophy that finally yield the classical karma-theory as known to later dogmatics. Presuming quite unspecified assumptions on moral retribution, the development started with explicitly investigating the nature of this retribution, and with considering it a stream of subtle matter afflicting the individual. A second major event seems to have been the idea of describing matter according to the latest atomistic doctrines of natural philosophy, and thus being able to explain the otherwise disturbing circumstance that karmic matter is invisible: except if they constitute a considerably large conglomeration like a pot etc. (ghaṭadikarya), atoms are invisible (apratyaksa). Dr.OHIRA's chronological framework clearly distinguishes both achievements by subsuming them, on the basis of the. five different textual layers constituting the Bhagavati, under the first viz. third stage of canonical development. This point of view is not only suggested by the Bhagavati itself, it is also clearly substantiated by a wide array of parallel texts employed by Dr.OHIRA. In fact, any serious attempt at critically deconstructing the rudis indigestaque moles of the Bhagavati and reassigning its single parts to different historical stages of textual and conceptional development yields an important device in order to close the evident gap between earlier Jaina thought and the mature speculations of later philosophers. Incidentally, the second important event in the evolution of the karma-theory which has just been referred to by no means meant any closure to the development of this theory; on the contrary, it was a starting point for plenty of later clarifications and sophistications directly leading to a stage represented, e.g., by Umasvati, and beyond. While describing the fourth and fifth stages the latter being most complicated and elusive in its obvious substructure - Dr.OHIRA reconsiders this further development, the later results of which she studied in her aforementioned book on the Tattvarthasutra.
Most closely connected with the concept of karma are the dual concepts of jiva and ajiva, the development of which is equally evident when considering the framework of stages suggested in the present book. Regardless whether we accept or not the view that a kind of primitive animism preceded the ancient Jaina view (cf.pp.5-6), it is clearly evident that the founder of Jainism already was able to utilize a set of assumptions regarding the jiva which was, by successively being combined with other theories and by thus being elaborated, gradually assimilated and improved upon.