Agam 35 Chhed 02 Bruhatkalpa Sutra

Author(s): K C Lalwani
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas

Page 11

FOREWORD A translation of the Kalpa Sūtra into English needs justification, since during the past few years several such translations have appeared in the market. The pioneering work by Hermann Jacobi remains a classic to this day, while in recent translations the writers have exercised a freedom which is hardly justified. The present translation not only claims complete authenticity, but, like the translation of a few other Jaina texts by the same writer, it also strictly follows the prakrit text in prose as well as verse so that the reader through the English medium may enjoy a taste of the original. The translation has also been checked with Jacobi's work on the one hand and an authentic Bengali translation by Basanta Kumar Chattopadhyaya published by the Calcutta University on the other, and slight inaccuracies noticed in these two works have been carefully weeded out. Jacobi's translation being addressed primarily to the Western readers does not provide the prakrit text, while the text as well as translation in Chattopadhyaya's work is printed in Bengali script so that its use can at the most be very limited to the Bengali readers who have an appetite for a Jaina text. These difficulties have been done away with in the present work. An. Appendix at the end provides alternative readings for a few passages, followed by Sūtra-wise Notes based on commentaries and an Index of Proper Nouns (names) appearing in the text.
Bhadrabāhu's Kalpa Sūtra, writes Jacobi, "has been held in high esteem by the Jaipas for more than a thousand years.” If Bhadrabahu be the author of this work, then it should be about 2300 years' old. If, however, its date be reckoned from the time of its writing, which took place at a meeting of the second Jaina Council at Ballabhi in A.D. 513, under the inspiring presence and leadership of Devardhi Kşamă-Gramapa, even then it must be 1500 years old. We are, however not much bothered about a controversy, if any, about the author and the exact date of its writing, which are issues to be thrashed out by scholars. It is enough for us that the work exists, and that it is a very old work, the oldest available, on the life of the Tirthankaras, and