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124
M. A. Dhaky
of fact may be belong to the 2nd or 3rd century A.D. since it incorporates a term pūrvānupūrvis :
एवं खलु समणे नातपुत्ते पुव्वानुपुब्बि चरमाने गामानुगामं दूइज्जमाने सुहंसुहेनं..............."(इत्यादि)
Contemporaneous to the last noted, and final reference to "Nātaputta' is to be discerned in the third appendix "Bhāvanā" in the second book of the Acarangasutra:
तेनं कालेनं तेनं समयेनं समणे भगवं महावीरे नाते नातपुत्ते नातकुलविनिव्वत्ते विदेहे विदेहदिन्ने facevta facerunt atei atentfer face for ...**** (scaifa,)
After this, references to ‘Nātaputta' are virtually absent in the āgamas.
Notes and References
1. Besides Vira and Mahāvira, he is also called Buddha, Rși, Maharşi,
Muni, Mahāmuni, Kāśyapa (after his gotra), etc. 2. In the Daśavaikālika-sūtra, the whole chapter is in the ancient Vaitāliya
metre, the sentence appears as verse; but since it has no metrical consistency, it creates unconformity. The next verse numbered 23 seems an interpolation by virtue of its style, wording, and content. In point of fact this chapter of the Dasavaikālika ends with the verse 21. The whole of the chapter 6 of the Uttarādhyayana is in Anuştubha metre, the end marked by the sentence under discussion appears separately in prose form
with nothing after that. 3. While the Vyākhyā-prajñapati's main bulk is stylistically dateable to the
2nd-3rd cent. A.D., its Kathānuyoga passages and chapters, some of which could be of the 1st, 2nd, originally belonged to other works; these have been shunted to this work possibly in the period between the late
fourth and the early sixth century A.D. 4. There is no evidence that Mahāvira has expounded the pañcastikayas.
These were known to, and collectively mentioned by Jina Pārśva in the Rşibhāṣitāni and possibly the detailed nature of the astikāyas was first defined by the pontiffs of the sect of Pārsva. The term does not figure in earlier texts. The Praśnavyākarana, a pretender agama of c. seventh century A.D., mentions nātamuni; and Dhananjaya, the Digambara poet of the 7th-8th century A.D., includes Jñātņputra' in the list of the epithets of Mahāvīra. (I forego citing these later references, which in any case are secondary; for in the age of these later authors, the epithet Nätaputta' for Mahāvira was not in currency, and if at all appearing as rare instances, the usage derives from or harks back to the early āgamic sources.) N. B. In the citations from the āgamas the language has been restored to Ardhamāgadhi by eliminating the Mahārāştri Präksta affectations.
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