Agam 05 Ang 05 Study Of Bhagvati Vyakhya Prajnapti Sutra

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

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415 Finally, in XX.9.682-83 the two types of superhuman gait are treated, ie., vidyacarana and janghacarana. An explanation is made as to the possessors of these capacities, the types of tapas to produce them, their range and velocity. The Vyavahara X lists the now extinct work called Caranabhavana which is not enumerated in the Nandi (cf. Appendix I, Ch. I, note 15), and the original content of the Prasnavyakarana understood from the Sthana involves the magical powers as such. This topic then might have arisen in a slightly earlier age, e.g., the fourth canonical stage. These sutras under discussion seem to be well acquainted with the details of continent-oceans worked out in the Dvipasagara p., and we place them in the fifth canonical stage. V.4.199 treats the magical power possessed by a knower of the 14 Purvas, namely, that he can, for instance, produce a thousand jars from a single jar. It says that this capacity is acquired by utkarika-bheda labdhi. Utkarika appears as one of the five bhedas in the Prajnapana XI.399 and XII.418. Here we can read the canonical authors' attempt to mystify the 14 Pürvadhara's ability. This text must belong to the early fifth canonical period (cf. F-2-2).
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shares the same trends of thought-world developed in the fourth-fifth canonical stages.
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Let us dispose in this connection of a few texts relevant to a kevali's ability and nature. VI.10.254 has the heretics say none of the beings in Rajagṛha can make an external display of their happiness and misery even of the size of a berry seed. MV retorts that no one in the world can by any means make an external display of the happiness and misery of beings. The word kevali is not used here at all, however the question as such must have been raised in relation to a person endowed with the highest capacity. A kevali can know and see everything in the three tenses of time, but he is incapable of outwardly displaying the internal happiness and misery of beings. The question as such may arise in a considerably later time, e.g., in the fourth-fifth stages. Then some heretics argue in XVI.7.631 that a kevali speaks untruth and truth-untruth when possessed by Yakṣas, against which MV insists that a kevali can never be possessed by Yaksas and he always speaks truth or neither-truth-nor-untruth. This question is rather rudimentary as to the nature of a kevali, and we can place it in the late third canonical stage onwards.
(4) Dispute with heretics.
Let us now deal with the disputes held between the Jainas and the heretics on ethical issues. Heretics accuse the Jaina elders in VII.7.336 (cf. D-1b), saying that Jaina ascetics are trividham trividhena asamyata up to totally stupid', because they consider alms food which has not yet fallen in their vessels to be theirs (transgressing the vow of asteya), because they tread upon living beings. while walking the road (transgressing the vow of ahimsa), and because they