Agam 39 Chhed 06 Mahanishith Sutra

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

Page 60

MAHĀNISĪHA STUDIES AND EDITION IN GERMANY.
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17. DATE and AUTHORSHIP
17.0 In this section we will only give a very brief note, for details see other sections, especially 18, where the detailed conclusions of both Schubring and Deleu are given in their contexts.
exts.
17.1 The problems of dating anonymous texts and also works of authors mostly known by their names only are, in the field of Indian literature, too familiar to scholars to find special mention here. The MNA is not an exception to this general situation. 17.2. The question that demands our attention first is: Is the MNA to be regarded as the work or composition of one individual, call him author or compilor, or does it belong to the category of anonymous and fluid texts which have grown step by step out of a kernel into their present forms. The answer to this question given by Schubring and others is: There is indeed the hand of a single person visible all through this composition and he is responsible for its present form. Though this person remains unknown (even his name is nowhere mentioned) his efforts to create a kind of unitary and "unique" text are evident in all parts of the MNA. 17.3 Taking into account the data provided by the parallel texts (sce 16), especially the anonymous Gacchâcāra (date uncertain) and the Upadeśamālā of Dharmadāsa-gani (ca. 900 A.D.), it seems nearly certain that the MNA must be anterior to both of them. 97.4 Presuming that the remark in III.825 (see 19.4) is the latest interpolation and has been inserted, surely after the famous Nemicandra (13th cent. AD), into the nearly completed form of the MNA, it can safely be conjectured that it has to be dated between 900 and 1200 AD. This is, however, not to deny the fact that the main parts belong to a much earlier period, perhaps anterior to Haribhadra even, as Schubring suggests, and have been recast to fit into the superstructure.
17.5 The earliest evidence for its evaluation as a canonical authority is Ratnasekhara, who composed his Ācārupradipa in samvat 1516. An event recorded in the MNA can be dated earliest in ca. 640 AD.(MNA VII.86: p.76.29-37, p.64; MNSt.A p.26; below 18.1.3). The Mahänisiha recorded in the Nandi- and Päksika-sūtra is surely not identical with the present MNA.
17.6 Deleu concludes: "It proves altogether impossible, for the time being, to establish the exact date of the Mahänisiha. The comparatively late date of its composition, however, is an incontestable fact. With regard to the old genuine canon the work undoubtedly is apocryphal" (p.1).