Agam 05 Ang 05 Study Of Bhagvati Vyakhya Prajnapti Sutra

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

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MV mentally as to how many of his disciples may attain liberation, to which MV replies also mentally. Gautama is incapable of knowing what has happened among them until he is told about it by these two gods themselves. Similarly, V.4.195 says that Anuttaropapa tika devas can communicate with a kevali on earth, because they have attained ananta mano-dravya-varganā labdhi. Repeating the very same reason stated above, they are said in XIV.7. 521 to be aware that MV and Gautama will be emancipated in this very life (this is the content of the previous sutra which must belong to the early fifth stage, cf. F-1-3). Again the term manaħparyaya is not employed in these sutras. The Prajnapanā XXX knows that manaħparyaya jnana occurs to M alone but not to G. However, the contents of these texts cannot but belong to the age of story composition and the compilation of church chronology, i.e., the early fifth canonical stage. Also mano-dravya-vargana labdhi is a technical term occurring in a later age. It appears that manahparyaya jnana took a dilatory course of development. This makes us suspect that the relevant Prajnapana passage above and its XX.560 (which informs that manahparyaya jnana arises in a monk) are later additions. This jnana is said in the Nandi 65 to belong to an apramatta-samyata monk who has attained rddhi by way of penance.
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V.4.194 mentions that among Vaimanika devas, those who are amayi samyagdrsti, paramparopapannaka, pariyāptaka and upayukta (with upayoga) alone can know and see that a kevali is equipped with the pre-eminent mind and speech. From the objects of knowledge discussed here, i.e., speech and mind, this text must be taking up the problem of avadhi and manahparyaya jnana. Manahparyaya jnana belongs to M alone, therefore this text was composed when avadhi and manahparyaya were not yet clearly distinguished. The Prajnapana XV.442 takes up a similar topic; that the Vaimanika devas who are amayi samyagdrsti up to upayukta can know and see the purged out particles (nirjara pudgala), which is no doubt relevant to avadhi. We will at present place our text in the fourth canonical stage.
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That M
That MV possessed ananta jnana and ananta der'sana is the old position of the Acara I, wherein the word ananta is meant as "extraordinary" or "unfathomable” in the sense of epithet. Cosmography and ontology of the Jainas took the course of evolution and developoment in the third canonical stage onwards. In the course of time an idea evolved naturally that all contents of the branches of knowledge so far developed should be known to a person who is entitled to attain salvation. The concept of kevala jnana-darsana must have thus become a serious concern of the Jainas in the late third canonical period onwards. And a rule that one can achieve liberation after attaining kevala jnana-darsana expressed in the Bhagavati 1.4.42 must have been framed around the late third-fourth canonical stages, because the Prajnapana XX.560, for instance, is acquainted with this idea. 1.4.42 is referred to by V.5.200