Agam 05 Ang 05 Study Of Bhagvati Vyakhya Prajnapti Sutra

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

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among other texts generally show no topical relevancy to other texts in one and the same uddesaka. Since the references to the other canonical texts made by non-X-sutras already occur in the earlier age, some of these X-sutras must have been composed gradually in the final canonical stage as the texts referred to were composed or compiled in almost the final form. However, since the total incorporation of these Pannatti texts into the Bhagavati to avoid mutual reiterations can only have been done intentionally, X-sutras in the majority must have been inserted by the Third Valabhi Convention, which must have had a definite policy for compiling each canonical text by conferring to it a specific characteristic feature and role.
Since the fundamental problems treated in the Bhagavati are shared by the other Pannatti texts, there is no doubt that it was easy for the Bhagavati to absorb their contents. It did not absorb the total contents of the SuryaCandra p., but it incorporated almost the entire contents of the other Pannatti texts. The true intention of the then church authorities in doing so is a curious point to be speculated on.
The Surya-Candra p. is a treatise on astronomy that asserts the then relevant Jaina views, which go against the early astronomical data and the then prevalent views of the Hindus on the whole. This text stood in the position of an auxiliary science for the Jainas, in assisting them to establish a general plan of their solar bodies or Jyotiskas and Jaina cosmography. It therefore soon lost its original function when the classes of jivas were firmly established in the cosmographical background. As we have examined in Ch. III, Sec. A-2, the Bhagavati has little to do with the so-called astronomical features. It is hence not at all strange that the Bhagavati did not integrate the Surya-Candra p.
The Bhagavati essentially deals with the problems of jiva-ajiva in loka-aloha. And many passages falling in the fifth canonical stage were composed later than the Jivajivabhigama, Prajnapana and Jambudvipa p. In other words, the Bhagavati contains materials on jiva-ajiva developed in the pre-Pannatti texts as well as the post-Pannatti texts. Therefore, by incorporating these Pannatti texts into the Bhagavati, it can represent the total doctrinal system of jiva-ajiva developed by the Jainas in the canonical period.
The Bhagavati stories often describe pious laymen who are well acquainted with the doctrine of jiva-ajiva (abhigaya-jivajiva). And this idiomatic phrase 'abhigaya-jivajiva' is expressed in a capacity of representing the Jaina doctrinal system as a whole, in contrast to the Brahmanical doctrinal system which is often represented by the Vedas, Itihasas, Puranas and so on. In other words, the doctrine of jiva-ajiva came to be recognized as the fundamental doctrinal system of the Jainas distinguished from that of the other schools, and this doctrine of jiua-ajiva was imposed upon all Jainas, ascetic and lay, to be