Agam 05 Ang 05 Study Of Bhagvati Vyakhya Prajnapti Sutra

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

Page 119

auspicious occasions such as the birthday of an arhat, and that all of them are capable of causing darkness when they want to hide themselves in order to enjoy love sports, when they want to trick their enemies, and so on. XIV.8. 531 describes Sakra's supernatural power that enables him to cut a man's head off and after chopping it into pieces, to reassemble them together and place the head back on the man's shoulders as it was before. Then, a story of Sakra's past life as the merchant Kartika, who became a Jaina monk initiated by Muni Suvrata (the 20th tirthankara), is told in X VI.2.616. It is said in X V1.2.567 that Śakra is a samyagvā di as a whole, but he speaks truth, falsehood, truthfalsehood and neither-truth-nor-falsehood as well. It is added here that his speech is irreproachable if he speaks whilst protecting subtle living beings (suhuma-kayam nijuhitta; according to Abhayadeva, he should cover his mouth with his hand and robe, etc.), otherwise his speech is reproachable. Such an idea does not occur in the fourth canonical stage yet. All these texts fall in the final canonical period.
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Hariņaigameși, commander of Sakra's foot army, is said in V.4.186 to be capable of transposing a womb from one woman to another without hurting them. In the Kalpasutra 20ff., Harinaigameși executes Sakra's order to transfer MV from Devananda's womb into Trisala's. In the Antakrt II.8, Harinaigamesi, who merely exchanges Sulasa's dead child with Devaki's boy immediately after their simulaneous birth, does not appear yet to have this capacity. This makes clear that the topic of Harinaigameşi in our Bhagavati was composed in the fifth canonical stage after the Antakrt II.8, but before the composition of the Kalpasutra.