Agam 05 Ang 05 Study Of Bhagvati Vyakhya Prajnapti Sutra

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

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The expansion of the Bhagavati materials to the present size seems to have happened by the stages of process explained above. The clumsy editorial skill exhibited elsewhere in the Bhagavati naturally emerged in the process of absorbing new materials. The same concepts were frequently repeated, as they must have been considered important enough to be reiterated by the editors at each given time.
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The Bhagavati in the present form is the product of the final retouches made at the Third Valabhi Council, which is responsible for the final edition of these passages as they stand at present. Besides the final selection and placement of the texts composed in the fifth canonical stage as mentioned above, this Canonical Council chose the problem of 'calamane calie' as the opening topic of the Bhagavati. It also included a group of story texts relevant to the early history of Jaina church centred round MV, including an independent story called 'Tejo nisarga'. It divided the whole book into 'satakas and udde'sakas, etc., composed the introductory passages and colophon both at the beginning and end of the book, listed the udde'saka titles at the head of each 'sataka, and reshaped the outlook of text construction by inserting the stereotyped prologue and epilogue passages (as a rule, a prologue is made at the beginning of 'a sataka; as a rule, an epilogue is offered at the end of an udde'saka and at the end of the sutra immediately proceding a story text; and a story text is usually accompanied by both prologue and epilogue), and so on. The Third Canonical Convention is also responsible for deciding the ordering principles and methods for editing the Bhagavati in the present form as enumerated by Deleu (Viyahapannatti, pp. 47 ff.): (1) the method of prefixing, interpolation, addition and integration; (2) the methods of recurrence, enframement and parallelism; (3) the principle of 'initial' and 'final' topics; and (4) the numerical principle. It is also responsible for the insertion of varnaka references which are made in due sequential order.
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Moreover the Third Valabhi Council prescribed a study plan of the Bhagavati in its colophon. The chronological layers of the Bhagavati passages are hopelessly entangled, and many expository passages of the earlier concepts must have been filtered out and lost in the course of time. Abhayadeva frequently finds difficulty in understanding the earlier passages, the meaning of which had already been lost by his time. The Bhagavati as a whole must have only been comprehensible to brilliant theoreticians even in the final canonical stage, and even these theoreticians must have had a hard time in comprehending some early passages. Such being the case, it is very doubtful how the Bhagavati prescription of its study plan was put into practice in reality. The value of this study plan seems to be merely nominal, to express the important position of the Bhagavati in the Jaina canon.
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The Vyavahara X.304 and the Nandi 44 (v.2, p.1074) enumerate a text called