Agam 05 Ang 05 Study Of Bhagvati Vyakhya Prajnapti Sutra

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

Page 48

as in the case of the Niryukti literature.
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Jiva-ajiva (strictly speaking, jiva-pudgala in this stage) are handled in this text in a cosmographical framework. And as we will see below, the then Jaina theoreticians are busy establishing a picture of the universe pervaded by jivas and matter (pudgala) that possess their own peculiar behaviour patterns and natures according to their classes and subclasses. Numerous anuyogadvaras are posed in order to ascertain the natures and activities of jivas in this and that class, which are later crystallized in the form of 14 marganasthānas. Once an eternal picture of the universe pervaded by jivas and matter with their determinate characteristics is completed, the mechanism of the karma theory which is in progress in this text can easily be worked out. The Prajnapanā is thus making a move towards the inevitable direction of Jaina philosophy, i.e., towards the fabrication of an edifice of the later karma doctrine.
The concept of pudgala has been roughly worked out in the previous canonical stage. (The rest of astikayas and addhasamaye took a slow course of evolution and developoment. The classification of ajiva involving the doctrine of pancastikāyas-cum-addhasamaya offered in the Prajnapanā Chapters I, II, etc., belongs to later ages.) Chapter V (Visesa) shows the then Jaina scholars' interest in determining how atoms and composites with so many pradesas can exhibit differences within each category, e.g., atom-class and two-pradesicomposite-class, etc., when viewed from the standpoints of dravya, prade'sa, avagahana, kala and bhava. From the last standpoint, for instance, the differences yielded within each category are said to be from 1/ananta to ananta times. An idea that ananta, for instance, consists of the difference by 1/ananta ~ ananta (that is, 1/ananta X ananta X ananta = ananta) was thus already known to them.
Another peculiar aspect that the then Jaina theoreticians' interest exhibits is revealed in Chapter X (Carama). Here the text considers two sets of anuyoga items, i.e., caramals and acarama/s (part/s consisting of the spatial border line/s and part/s making up inside the spatial border line/s) and caramanta prade'sas and acaramanta pradeśas (prades as constituting the spatial border lines and those constituting what is inside the spatial border lines). These two sets of anuyogadvaras are applied to the parts of loka (i.e., regions in the lower and upper worlds) and loka-aloka, which are considered from the standpoints of dravya, prade'sa and dravya-prades a, each offering an account of their relative numerical strength.
The application of these carama-acarama anuyogas is then extended to the arrangement of loose atoms and composites by way of carama-acaramaavaktavya (avaktavya being neither carama nor acarama) in order to see how
many alternative ways of arranging them are possible. It yields 7 major