Agam 05 Ang 05 Study Of Bhagvati Vyakhya Prajnapti Sutra

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

Page 187

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virati and avirati. The same treatment is made in sutra 577 as to samurta and asamorta of this and that class of beings. It continues to say that the dreams seen by ascetics with discipline (samurta) are true to reality, while those seen by indisciplined beings are true or not to reality. We assign the fifth canonical stage to these passages, which are used as an introduction to the succeeding sutras.
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Then, XT1.7.495 classifies death into five kinds, i.e., avicika, avadhi, atyantika, bala (foolish) and pandita (wise). The first three are concerned with the exhaustion of ayuş karma which belong to the fifth canonical stage (cf. E-3b-5). Wise death already occurred in the Acara 1.7.8. For the classification of fooiish death, the text refers to the Skandaka story in 1.1.90-95 where foolish death is divided into twelve kinds and wise death into two kinds, of which the former increases samsāra and the latter decreases it.
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Finally, XIV.3.505-6 touch upon a problem of etiquette, namely, that the heretical gods do not come to salute and honour the spiritually advanced monks but the orthodox Jaina gods do, and that the etiquette of welcoming a guest, saluting him receiving and offering him a seat, etc., is found in A'M.G (A' do not offer a seat), but not in the rest of beings. These passages are the unmistakable product of the final canonical period when the Jaina-centred world view was established and when daily life became regulated by formal etiquette as such in the social and cultural background of the late Gupta age.