Agam 05 Ang 05 Study Of Bhagvati Vyakhya Prajnapti Sutra

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

Page 264

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These key texts are scattered all over Satakas I-XX at random, and as they stand would not be easily comprehended by ordinary persons. It makes us wonder if such an assembly of fragmentary passages might have been used as something like a memorandum by the theoreticians in the canonical age, and a basis from which they attempted to improve the relevant concepts further and explain their later development. It even exhibits features of a possible exercise book for the Jaina theoreticians, in which they freely experimented to formulate novel ideas, tried to offer case illustrations of various topics, and worked out how to express the earlier thoughts anew in more methodical way and on a higher technical level. On the other hand, the Bhagavati takes the role of attracting and educating lay followers mainly through its lively story texts.
619
The Bhagavati assembles numerous passages bearing such characteristics mentioned above, and it is a curious point for us to investigate why such features emerged. This inevitably directs us to examine what was the nucleus of the Bhagavati and how it came to be developed into the present form, for such peculiarities must have arisen in the process of its accumulation and filtration of materials guided by the aims and policies of the church authorities in tradition in the long canonical period.
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The Viyahapannatti (Vyakhya-prajnapti) is a product of the age that produced a group of Pannatti texts or the Jaina doctrinal treatises on jiva-ajiva in lokaaloka involving the relevant subject fields, i.e., astronomy, geography, cosmography and mythology, which include the Surya-Candra p. (third stage), the nucleus of the Jivajivabhigama (fourth stage), Prajnapanā (fourth stage), Jambudvipa p. (fifth stage) and Dvipasagara p. (fifth stage). The nucleus of the Jivajivabhigama could easily absorb the Dvipasāgara p., for it does not contradict the nature of a Pannatti text. A style of composition in which topics develop through the dialogue between MV and Gautama is commonly shared by the Bhagavati, Jivajivabhigama including Duipasagara p., Prajnapana (even though not in all its chapters), and Jambudvipa p. We have previously discussed that the 12 Angas must have been authorized at the Second Canonical Council held at Mathurā or Valabhi. All this suggests that the Bhagavati was presumably compiled for the first time under the name Viya hapannatti at about the time of the Second Canonical Council. The Vyavahāra X enumerates the Viyahapannatti, and we have already mentioned that this list of Vyavahara was probably added in the fifth canonical stage.
621 Let us now go back to Tables I and II. According to our analysis, the texts
composed duri g the third stage count 64. The Jainas entered the stage of theorizatio upon entering the third canonical period when the theory of atoms began to be circulated among the philosophical schools. The Jaina authors learnt the art of theorization from them predominantly, and the Jaina scheme
of pudgala began to develop thenceforth. The rudimentary theory of karma