Ancient Jaina Hymns

Author(s): Charlotte Krause
Publisher: SCIndia Oriental Institute Ujain

Page 27

INTRODUCTION ?
scanty, while there are elaborate biographies of a few of them, who enjoy special popularity. Their lives, including previous existences, form also the subjects of individual monographs in Sanskrit, Prakrit, Apabhramsa, and Gujarati. Adinātha, Munisuvrata, Pārsvanatha, and Mahavira, to whom some of the hymns published below are dedicated, belong to that category.
Much less attention than to this last Caturvimsatikā of our Bharatakşetra has naturally been paid to the 24 Tirthaikaras who were contemporaneous with then in Airāvata. Their names, however, are handed down? The same must be stated with regard to the Caturvim. satikās who appeared previous to the latter, i. e., in the Last Utsarpinis both in Bharata" and in Airāvata'. It seems that a certain tradition exists regarding the five “Kalyāṇakas” of those three groups".
Lists of the names of the Tirtharkara-caturvinSatikās destined to appear in Bharata' and Airāvata in the coming Utsarpiņi are likewise handed down. These future Tirthaikaras are of somewhat stronger interest, since they are linked up with the past by certain predictions found in the Sacred Literature with regard to those personalities in whom they were once incarnated. Thus, Sulasā, a loyal lady-devotee of Mahāvira, is to be reborn as the 16th Tirthankara of the coming Utsarpiņi of Bharata. In the same way, King Sreņika, the ruler of Magadha during Mahāvīra's time.
(1) Samav., Sūtra 159, st. 66 ff. (p. 153) and Pravac., Dvara 7, st. 296-299.
(2) Pravac., Dvåra 7, st. 288-290, and Abhidhān. I, st. 50 ff. (3) loc. cit.
(4) Pūrņa-kşema-valabba-viläsa, Saugraha-kartta Śri-Vallabhasigara Gani, Neimach, V. S. 1990, Bhäga 3, p. 28.
(5) Samay., Sūtra 159, st. 72 ff.; Fravac., Dvira 7, st. 293-295; Abbidh. 1, st. 53 ff. (6) Samav., Sūtra 159, st. $7 ff.; Pravac., Dvāra 7, st. 159, S7 ff.
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