Caurasi Bol

Author(s): Padmanabh S Jaini
Publisher: Siddhantacharya Pt Fulchandra Shastri Foundation Roorkee

Page 11

safely assumed that this work is identical with the one that formed the pūrva-paksha for the Shvetambara refutation.
The author of the Caurāsī Bol, Hemaraj Pande, is the same person who wrote the Hindi Pravacanasara Bhāshā Tīkā called Bālāvabodha, published in the Pravacanasara of Kundakunda, edited by Dr. A. N. Upadhye. This work was completed in Agra in Samvat 1709 (= A.D. 1653) when Shah Jahan was on the throne of Delhi. We learn from a biography of Hemaraj, written by Dr. Kasturchand Kasliwal, that he was also the author of some fifteen additional works, several in verse, including the Caurāsī Bol, which was completed in the same year as the Bālāvabodha."
At the end of his brief article, Professor Kapadiya had expressed a wish that these two texts should be edited, translated, and compared to arrive at a better understanding of these two ancient Jain traditions:
आम प्रस्तुत कृतिनुं अनेकविध महत्त्व होवा थी ... अनो विशेष प्रचार अने अभ्यास थवो घटे आ माटे आ कृतिनुं समीक्षात्मक संस्करण तैयार करावी प्रकाशित करावं जोईओ. अमां पूर्वपक्ष तरीके हेमराज पांडेनी सितपट चौर्यासी बोल नामनी कृतिने स्थान आप
घटे, विशेषमां प्रस्तुत कृतिनो गुजराती अनुवाद पण आपवो जोईओ. साथे साथे सामसामी अपायेली दलीलो केटली सबळ अने प्राचीन छे ते दर्शावावुं जोइओ.
The present edition of Hemaraj Pande's Caurāsī Bol thus takes one more step in furthering a critical study of the manifold issues that separate the Digambara and the Shvetambara traditions. As is well known, two major issues, namely, kevali-bhukti (whether a kevalin, i.e., an Omniscient Being, partakes of food or not) and strī-mukti (whether a woman may attain moksha in that very life or not) dominate that debate. The Strinirvana-Kevalibhuktiprakarane, edited by Muni Jambūvijaya, is a most comprehensive collection of original and commentarial material available on these two topics. This has facilitated a good amount of modem research, notably, an article entitled, "Food and Freedom: The Jaina Sectarian Debate on the Nature of the Kevalin," by Professor Paul Dundas," and my own book Gender
2