An Investigation Of Textual Sources On Samavasarana

Author(s): Nalini Balbir
Publisher: Nalini Balbir

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NALINI BALBIR
one type of precious stone." More generally, the map of the samavasaraṇa also refers us to the traditional pattern of city planning in South Asia, where life is organized in concentric circles revolving around a central temple. On the other hand, the mention of only three groups of gods (the Vyantaras are here absent), each referring to one of the three worlds of the Jain cosmology, is a way of suggesting that the samavasarana is an image of the cosmos (below 2.2.4). The higher they are in the vertical image of the worlds, the closer to the centre they are." About the material of the walls, the striking and queer thing is that the list mixes ratna.s, for the first one, and dhatu.s (gold and silver), for the second and the third. The general connection between rubies and sun in the Indian tradition might account for the fact that rubies are used for the central part."
The central point of the sacred space is the place where the objects meant for the Jina are located. According to vs. 11, they are: a sacred tree (asoka, prose commentaries), a small stool at the foot of the tree surmounted with a canopy (chandaya), a throne surmounted with superposed umbrellas and fly-whisks. Ca (in jam c'annam, vs. 11) is understood by the commentaries as implying a wheel of the Law (dhamma-cakka) placed on a lotus-flower. However, there seems to have been diverging traditions about the gods who are involved in the preparation of these objects: the Vyantaras according to the verse tract and all the prose-commentaries (Av.-cürņi, Haribhadra, Kşemakirti), other gods of a better status according to another (apparently contradictory) passage: the aśoka-tree is fashioned by Śakra, umbrellas and flywhisks by Isäna, other objects by Bali and Camara (Av.-cürni 325.5-6). Except for the tree (already present in the Canonical sources as the main sign of the preaching setting) and the dharma-cakra, all objects point to a royal figure rather than to an ascetic. However, the wonder of the arising of lotuses where the Jina (or the new-born Bodhisattva) steps (vs. 13) may refer to both ascetic and royal milieus.
Cf. J. Przyluski, "La ville du Cakravartin. Influences babyloniennes sur la civilisation de l'Inde": Rocznik Orjentalistyczny V (1927; published in 1929), p. 15foll.
For an anthropologically oriented investigation of the hierarchy of gods, see the monographs collected in Classer les dieux? Des panthéons en Asie du Sud. Etudes réunies par V. Bouillier and G. Toffin. Paris: EHESS 1993, Puruşartha 15, especially M. Gaborieau, "Des dieux dans toutes les directions. Conception indienne de l'espace et classification des dieux", p. 23-42.
"I thank Dr. A. Roşu for this information, available in L. Finot, Les lapidaires indiens. Paris 1896, especially p. 175.
"On the general association between the throne and the tree, see J. Auboyer, Le trône et son symbolisme dans l'Inde ancienne. Paris: PUF 1949, p. 59-60.
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AN INVESTIGATION OF TEXTUAL SOURCES ON THE SAMAVASARANA
The area is at first empty. The next stage is the ordering of space and of its inhabitants which follows a very strict etiquette (described in vss. 16ff.), especially in the area close to the centre, viz. the inner part of the samavasarana-ground. The map of the samavasarana is a space oriented according to the four main directions, each corresponding to an entrance and leading to a fifth point, the centre where the Jina is located. The importance of this central point is emphasized by the rite of the pradakṣina which is to be performed by all the categories of beings whose place is in the intermediate quarters of the inner part near the centre (infra). All directions are not equally valued. As expected in India, the east is the best: the Jina enters by the eastern side and is turned towards the east (puvva-muho, vs. 14). There is a perfect correspondence between space and time: the duration of the samavasarana fits in with the course of the sun: it starts with sunrise and ends with sunset (vs. 13). The wish to make the samavasarana a really universal assembly from which no single creature should be excluded is probably partly responsible for a peculiar detail, somewhat naively stated: the superpower (prabhava) of the Jina accounts for the fact that the gods were able to create in the other three directions three exact replicas (padiruvaga, vs. 15) of the Jina with the same accessories as the real one, "so that everybody is sure that he speaks to him"." This of course calls to mind the caumukha-composition which obeys the same principle, i.e. an "upright cube or cylinder on the four sides of which Jinas appear". Pictorial representations occasionally show another interpretation: they represent a total of five Jina-figures (one in the centre and four replicas)."
The groups who have to take their places in the intermediate quarters around the Jina are respectively gods and human beings (ascetics / non ascetics). The style of the verse-tract (vss. 16-18 + 23) is so abrupt and concise that it is difficult to get a precise idea of the exact position of all the groups; hence the parallel expansion of vss. 19-2219bis-22bis (see above 1.2): they indicate through which entry the groups come and where they go, but they do not specify how those who take their positions in the same quarter are located (who is behind whom). The maximum amount of accuracy is to be seen in the Prakrit prose of the Av.-curni (327.1-328.2), and this probably suggests that the verse-tract is a summary of the prose (rather than
Evam savvo logo janai "amham kahei" tti, Av.-cürni 325.7-8; and again 326.13 jaha savvo jänati mama sa-padihutto ti ("so that everybody knows that he also faces him").
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K. Bruhn, The Jina images of Deogarh. Leiden 1969, p. 16.
See, for instance, C. Caillat - Ravi Kumar, The Jaina Cosmology No. 5.