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THE CANONICAL LITERATURE OF THE JAINAS
CHAP.
VIVĀGASUYA . This is the 11th Anga. It deals with the fructification or matured fruits (vivāga)' of deeds, bad and good, done in previous births. This work is accordingly divided into two suyakkhundhas styled as Duhavivāga3 and Suhavivāga, the former occupying a space about 7 times that occupied by the 2nd. Each of these furnishes us with ten narratives. These narratives describe the lives of ten persons. Therein their two lives as a human being are given in details whereas their subsequent transmigrations in the samsāra and their attaining liberation in the end, are summarily disposed of. In the Duhavivāga all the 10 persons concerned are not mates as is the case with Suhavivāga; but, there are only 8 males, the remaining two being females.
This Vivāgasuya can be looked upon as a work on kathanuyoga as it deals with narratives. These narratives supply us with a beautiful picture of the society of those days when this work was composed. For instance, we learn therefrom (89) that a blind man led by a man having eyes and having a stick held in front of him used to earn his livelihood by going to various houses and by creating a feeling of compassion for him in the persons he came across. The mention of 16 diseases ($22) viz. asthama, cough, fever, burning sensation in the body, pain in the stomach or belly, fistula, piles, indigestion, an eye-disease, head-ache, loss of appetite, pain in eyes and ears, itching, dropsy and leprosy and over and above this, that of aggiä (§ 27 ), a disease which rapidly consumed anything when eaten and which according to Abhayadeva Sūri, is known as bhasmaka, give us an idea of the diseases known in those days. The remedies in the case of the 1st 16 1 Cf. "a99:- TATHATÁ Hula-sifa aq fa "
-Siddhasena Gani's com. (p. 91) on Tattvārtha (I, 20) 2 This may remind a Bauddha scholar of Avadānašataka and Karmaśataka. 3-4 Each of these names is mentioned in plural in Vivāgasuya. See § 4. 5 In Suhaviväga only the first narrative is given in full, whereas the rost,
in bare outlines.
