Agam 05 Ang 05 Study Of Bhagvati Vyakhya Prajnapti Sutra

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

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exhibit nothing but the Jaina theoreticians' plethoric inquisitiveness in applying the then newly fashioned theory of directions to their primary problem of jivaajiva.
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The classification of jiva-ajiva as such, of which knowledge is essential to understand this theory of directions, was finalized in the fifth canonical stage. The theory of directions must have evolved hence in the final canonical period in connection with locating the central point of the world against which a kevali must fix the central point of his physical body in order to perform samudghata at the final moment of his life. (The Prajnapana XXX V1.711 informs us that kevali samudghata is performed within eight moments, which seems to be a later accretion.) A calculation of the relative number of beings in the four directions appears in the Prajnapana I.3, which however has nothing to do with the theory of directions. We can thus assign the last canonical stage to X.1.393, X I.4.478-79 and X V1.8.582. This Bhagavati account of ten directions and jiva-ajiva above is recorded nowhere in canonical literature. It evidently went no further with the Bhagavati than the experimental level and does not seem to have survived in the post-canonical period because of its obvious lack of value.
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Lastly, X1.10.419 succinctly offers the Jaina concept of loka-aloka discussed above from the standpoints of dravya, kşetra, kala and bhava. References are made to 1.10.120-21 (cf. B-2), VI.1.260 (cf. C-1d-3) and X.1.393 (cf. A-1-4 above). This text cannot but belong to the final canonical stage.