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Arhat Pārsva and Dharanendra Nexus: An Introductory Estimation
may be a totemic symbol, and a signifier possibly of the links of Pārsva (his ancestors?) with the Nāga tribe.53 In any case, there exists plenty of archaeological evidence for the nāga worship in north India from the pre-Mauryan times through the early centuries of Christian Era, and in South, particularly in the Sātavāhana-Iksvāku periods when steles depicting polycephalous nāga figure were worshipped. The legend of the Mucalinda-Buddha in the Pāli canon and the missing (or unreported) early legend in the Pārsvanātha context in the Ardhamāgadhi canon may have derived from the common cultural millieu of the pre-Christian Era times. This, ultimately, is a problem on which perhaps a cultural anthropologist (equipped also with the knowledge of early Indian socio-religious conditions, history, literature, and archaeology) may be able to shed further light.
ANNOTATIONS
1. For discussion, see Walter Schubring, The Doctrine of the Jainas, reprint, Delhi 1978, pp. 28-31. 2. Cf. Pt. Kailashchandra, Jaina Sábitya kā Itihasa Purvapīthikā (Hindi), Vārāṇasi V.N. 2489 (A.D.
1962), pp. 107-83; and Pt. Dalsukh Malvaniya, "Prastāvanā", Jaina Sahitya kā Brbad Itihasa
(Hindi), pt. 1, Vārāṇasi 1966, pp. 21-27. 3. For example the Acāränga Book I (c. early 5th-3rd cent. B.C.), the Sūtrakstānga (c. 4th-2nd cent.
B.c.), the Daśavaikälika (c. 4th-2nd cent. B.c.), and the Uttarādhyayana (c. 3rd cent. B.C. to B.C.
1-2nd cent. A.D.). 4. Here I have used the Mahāvīra Jaina Vidyalaya edition, the text incorporated within the compi
lation Painnayasuttăim, pt. 1, Jain Agama Series No. 17, Bombay 1984, pp. 181-256. The text uses material, a larger portion of which pre-dates the compilation itself by a few centuries, and at least three chapters therein may even go to the times close to Pärśva, Vardhamāna, and the
Ajīvika Mankaliputra Gośālaka. 5. For detailed discussion, see Muni Punyavijaya, "Prathamānuyogasaśātra ane tenā Pranetā Sthavira
Arya Kalaka" (Gujarāti), Jnananjali, Bombay 1960, pp. 122-29. The other three works of Arya śyāma were the Gandikānuyoga, the Lokānuyoga, and a bunch of Sangrahanis. The well-known Caturvinsati-stava, one of the six āvasyakas incorporated, since c. fifth century A.D., into what is called the Avašyaka-sūtra, may have been the inaugural (nändi or mangala) hymn of the Prathamānuyoga on the analogy of a convention, though somewhat late, of the Caturvimšatistava figuring in the Nandi-sūtra of Deva Vacaka (c. A.D. 450), the Paümacariya of Vimala Suri (c. A.D. 473) as well as in its augmented Sanskrit version, the Padmacarita of the Yāpaniya author?) Ravişena (A.D. 677), the Harivamsapurāna of (the Yāpaniya?) Jinasena (A.D. 784) of Punnāta
Sangha, etc. 6. Punyavijaya 1960, pp. 124-25. 7. For details, see Pt. Dalsukh Malvaniya, Sthànănga-Samavāyānga (Gujaräti), Ahmedabad 1955,
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