Agam 39 Chhed 06 Mahanishith Sutra

Author(s): Punyavijay, Rupendrakumar Pagariya, Dalsukh Malvania, H C Bhayani
Publisher: Prakrit Granth Parishad

Page 54

MAHĀNISĪHA STUDIES AND EDITION IN GERMANY
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offences. At the same time, (the MNA,) this work of the later period tries to secure for itself a legitimacy through some connection with the old text of the Nisitha-sutra"$2.
16.5 In the subsequent time the MNA has been reflected in some later compositions, some of which may be inentioned here. (See also 11.12 for more details.) (1) As Schubring (MNSt.A, pp.48-50) has proved, the SusaŅha-kahā / -carita of Devendra-sūri is a "metrical recast" of the VIIIth Chap. (Susadha-kahā) of the MNA. Even the story of Lakkhaṇadevi (Chap. VI.204*ff.) was inserted by Devendra into his work, which is full of his own embellishments and avoids any verbatim citations of verses from the MNA. (2) Ratnasekhara-sūri has, in his Ācāra-pradipa (Skt), composed in samvat 1516, cited in extracts a large part of MNA III.$3.15-836.1 as his classical and canonical source. (3) Some interesting passages of the MNA (e.g. III. $25, IV.818Sk) were regarded as. canonical and therefore worth citation and discussion by Dharmasāgara-sūri in his Kupakşa-kausikâditya (Chap.III), composed in samvat 1629. Schubring (MNSt.A pp.46) and Deleu (MNS..B,pp.1f.) study the original also in the light of Dharmasāgara's comments. It is remarkable to observe how the MNA was drawn into later controversies amongst the Jaina clergy; this observation finds further support in the fact that Jñãnasāgara, in his avacūri on Caityavandana-bhāsya, vs.30 by Devendra cites MNA III.825 (detected by Ernst Leumann). (4) Other parallels, not so conspicuous as those registered above, are c.g. the Ācāravidhi, "chronologically near to the MNA" (Schubring, MNSt.A,p.55) and the still later Angacūliyā (ibid,p.54), and some more works which were then yet unpublished or unavailable to Schubring and other scholars. (5) In contrast, the MNA was denied any canonical authority by a number of schools which did not include it into their lists of the sacred texts (āguma). This point ha, been discussed by Schubring, MNSt.A,pp.99-101. Not only the dissident but also the orthodox doctors of the church must have found some of the views expressed in the MNA to be controversial, if not unacceptable or even heterodox.
52 It may be added here that the MNA claims for the Pancamangala-tract a series of Niryukti-BhāşyaCürņi commentaries which, it says, are extinct! Sec III.$25.2.