Buchbesprechungen Comptes Rendues

Author(s): W B Bollee
Publisher: W B Bollee

Page 1

BUCHBESPRECHUNGEN/COMPTES RENDUS
987
BUCHBESPRECHUNGEN/COMPTES RENDUS
BOLLEE, Willem B. Bhadrabahu Byhar-kalpa-niryukri and Sanghadisa Brhar kalpa-bhasya, Romanized and metrically revised version, notes from related texts, and a selective glossary. 3 Parts. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1998. (Beiträge zur Südasienforschung, Südasien-Institut, Universität Hei. delberg, 181,1; 181,2; 181,3.) ISBN 3-515-07270-5. xxiv, 411, xxxiv, 421, viii, 315 pp. Price: DM/sFr 280.= (ÖS 2044 =)
Jaina exegetical literature is vast, complicated, and little explored. The volumes under review deal with the Niryukti and the Bhasya of the "real" Kalpasútra, also known as Vedakalpa or Brhat(sādhu)kalpa, and to be distinguished from the Paryusana-Kalpa (vol. I p. 1). "There are various ways"--Bollée explains in the Introduction (vol. 1 p. 4)-"of dealing with bulky Indian scriptural traditions of (this) kind...
(1) one can make a systematic inventory of the contents and turn it into a cultural study ...
(2) One can choose a portion of text which is related, edit, translate and comment on it with the help of the tika etc....
(3) The entire text can be brought out as a basis for further study, with a complete glossary ... or with an ample selection of important words."
Bollée then concludes: "The [Brhatkalpabhasyal being still virginal territory sofar I have ... opted for the third approach to start work on it." This means that most of this study consists of the Prakrit text of the Brhat
1
The text edited and translated under the name Kalpasutra by Hermann Jacobi (see the Bibliography, Part 3 p. 270 under Jacobi, where 1878 has to be corrected to 1879, and Part 1 p. I where 1882 has to be corrected to 1884) and others (eg KC Lalwani) is neither identical with the Brhatkalpasutra nor with the Paryusana Kalpa, though it contains the latter. For a description of this text and its position in the Jaina canon, see Winternitz, 1920: 309-310.