Biology in Jaina Treatise on Reals

Author(s): N L Jain
Publisher: Parshwanath Vidyapith

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Biology in Jaina Treatise on Reals
scholarly Jaina seers like Umāsvāti to compose a Jaina text on similar lines. Secondly, this has been also the period when the ethical and philosophical concepts of the Jainas were under experimental and mental scrutinisation stage. There were differing and varied alternative opinions and most of the concepts were in colloidal state requiring logical crystallisation. The scholars point out that every thought and concept passes through a historical process of its development. Besides, this was also a period when the Nirgrantha (knot-less) church (this was the earlier name of Jaina Church) was undivided though schismic nucleation might have taken place much earlier. The author Umāsvāti must be given credit to have been born during such a critical period of Jaina Church to crystallise and systematise the Jaina pathways and establish scholarly excellence in tune with the times of the middle of the third century A.D.
The Aphorist Author
The spiritualist Jainas of pre- and early post-Christian era were mostly anonymous about their compositions. They adopted this tradition on many counts such as (i) extreme faith in the Jinas and their omniscience (ii) virtually tri-timal validity of their sermons of Jaina faith and (iii) compiler or faithful follower concept about their compositions for their credibility. That is why, there have always been discussions about their authorship and composition period. This has been a general trend even upto tenth century. Of course, some authors have a short mention of their parentage and/or teacher-taught lineage without any details. This historical disregard has been responsible to contribute to many debatable and as yet unresolved issues to evaluate Jinistic contribution in the literary and philosophical fields properly. The Tattvārtha Sūtra is no exception to this trend, specially its D-version. Moreover, the prominence of the above trend in the early compositions casts doubt about the period of Vācaka Umāsvāti. One has to convince how could his details be taken as exception in the matter?
Despite this, many scholars have academically attempted about the issue of the authorship of this first Jaina Sanskrta text. It is agreed that Acarya Um āsvāti is the author of the text ( of course, with different titles of identification). However, his personal identity is still under discussion by the scholars. The author is described with two titles- (i) Grddhapiccha and (ii) Vācaka. The scholarly discussion on this point is based on the following grounds: (a) Different pontifical and elders' lineage records of varying periods. (b) Many inscriptional records of Sravanvelgola, Hansi, Humcha etc. (c) The mention of author in literary commentaries by the commentators like Vidyananda, Siddhasena, Haribhadra, Vadiraja and in other texts of different authors like Virasena.