Canonical Niksepa

Author(s): Bansidhar Bhatt
Publisher: Bharatiya Vidya Prakashan

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as well, and hoped that a second work dealing with the later scholastic Niksepa would appear in due course. Unfortunately I have been so involved in other fields of teaching that I can hardly devote sufficient time and ease to such a task at present. Perhaps the contribution which I have made since then to Jaina philology, more particularly to the Nikṣepa, will be evident from some of my published articles. Among them A Composite Niksepa in the Acara-Niryukti (Gedenkschrift: Ludwig Alsdorf, ANIS 23, Universitaet Hamburg 1981, pp. 1-9) is directly concerned with the study of the post-canonical Niksepa, and its irregular elements and exceptional form. Here, it is shown how Niksepas are flexible in some respects, and how they are subject to rules in other respects the LOKA- Nikşepas in the Acāra-Niryukti and in the Avaśyaka-Niryukti, and their composite character is a case in point). In Mahaparinnā: The Lost Chapter in the Acārāngasūtra (32nd AIOC Proceedings, B.O. Research Institute, Poona 1987, pp. 353-57) I have again dealt with the Niksepa material of the post-canonical text, Ācāra-Niryukti and given some clues towards tracing the lost chapter, Mahāparinnā, inside the Ācāra itself. In Acara-Cūlās and Niryukti. Study I (Mme. Colette Caillat Felicitation Volume, Indologica Taurinensia 14, Torino 1987-88, pp. 95-116) and in Study II (Jozef Deleu Felicitation Volume, Tokyo, expected in 1991) I have, on the basis of the existing Niksepa material, demonstrated that the Acāra text earlier contained only one cūlā, viz., Bhāvanā (Study I), and that the Mahāvira-biography in it is a later interpolation (Study II). This all reveals that the study of the postcanonical Nikṣepas helps us trace various structures not only in the Niryuktis, Curnis and Tikas but also in the Sütra texts of the Jainas. Perhaps I shall be able to publish in the future further observations on the post-canonical Niksepas.
Once again I dedicate this Indian edition to Professor Dr. KLAUS BRUHN who first initiated me into the study of Jainism in 1969 and has continued to give me his advice up to this day.
I am much indebted to the Publishers, Messrs EJ Brill and also to the Editors of the first edition: Prof. Dr. KLAUS BRUHN (Institut fuer Indische Philologie und Kunstgeschichte der Freien Universitaet Berlin) and Prof. Dr. Mrs. MARIANNE YALDIZ (the present successor to Prof. Dr. HERBERT HAERTEL, Museum fuer Indische Kunst Berlin, Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz) for permitting the publication of this Indian edition. I have also to thank Mr. KISHORE CHAND JAIN of Messrs Bharatiya Vidya Prakashan, Delhi, for his initiative and enterprise in publishing this edition in India.
Muenster, 31st January, 1990
BANSIDHAR BHATT