Agam 05 Ang 05 Study Of Bhagvati Vyakhya Prajnapti Sutra

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

Page 194

164
fifth canonical stage.
420
Taking advantage of this occasion, we would like to make a review of the nature of heretical texts which exhibit the heretical positions on problems in various subject fields.
421
Heretical texts are largely dividable into two groups, i.e., one which involves Jamali and Ganga's nihnava issues and the other which has nothing to do with them. The former group includes: 1.9.75 (cf. E-3b-5), 1.10.80-81 (cf. D-la, D1b), 1.5.99 (cf. C-1c-4), V.3.182 (cf. E-3b-5), V.5.201 (cf. E-4), V1.10.256 (cf. E-3b-4), VI.7.336 (cf. D-1b, D-2b-4) and X V1.8.639 (cf. D-2b-4). We have already discussed the nature of these texts in D-1b, the theoretical importance of which is negligible. The latter group includes: 1.5.112 (cf. C-la) pertaining to the cause of the hot spring, V.6.207 (cf. C-2) pertaining to the thickly populated region, V1.10.254 (cf. D-2b-3) pertaining to the impossibility of displaying happiness and misery, VI.10.353 (cf. D-2a-1) pertaining to conduct and knowledge, X VI.2.594 (cf. D-2a-1) pertaining to the wise and the foolish, X VII.2.595 (cf. C1b) pertaining to the nature of jiva, and X V1.7.631 (cf. D-2b-3) pertaining to a kevali's speech. These texts each produce clear-cut Jaina positions in contrast to those held by the heretics, however the problems dealt with here are in general of minor importance. Neither can we distinguish, in most cases, to which school these heretics belong.
422 The Sutrakrta introduces many important heretical issues of the days when the
Jainas had barely anything that could yet be called their own philosophical tenets. The Jainas entered the age of theorization in the succeeding third canonical stage, and they came to develop their own doctrinal system by way of absorbing and rejecting the thoughts of the other schools as we have previously examined. We should remember in this connection that many early non-Jaina concepts came to be utilized by the Jainas in considerably later stages when the Jainas had developled their own way of theorization by making use of them. Thus the important doctrinal concepts of the heretics that helped the formulation and development of the Jaina concepts came to be integrated into the Jaina doctrinal system itself, which therefore did not take the distinct form of the heretical texts. Perhaps for this reason, the heretical sūtras in the Bhagavati are more or less of a minor nature. These heretical sutras were after all composed with the intention of showing the superiority of the relevant Jaina positions over their rivals. It is still noteworthy that the Bhagavati collects a good number of heretical sutras, which the later canonical texts do not contain. We should also note that the Bhagavati stories describe vividly and lively how the individual heretics met the Jaina monks for dispute in the classical period, which must have taken place daily in a similar manner in olden
times. Jain Education International