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Ancient Jaina Hymns
385
being an object of worship. The reading is, however, doubtful.
The text is contained on fol. 10 of manuscript no. 855 of the Scindia Oriental Institute, in which a collection of stavanas and caityavandanas is handed down ( all in all 23 ). The material is country paper, the writing in black ink. In the centre of each page, a rhomb is left blank, with four letters of the text jutting out, so as to form another, smaller rhomb. The characters are modern Jaina Devanāgarī. The writing looks extra-ordinarily neat and spectacular, the text is, however, very incorrect, and necessitated frequent conjectures, as the apparatus shows. After the text of our poem, the following colophon is given : "fa sit sitefistor 94141 : 22 aC 1880 q hieroor acte SA T : 11", which is followed by one more caityavandana with a colophon of its own, written by the same hand.
6. The Vira-Stuti In older Svetāmbara works, the word 'stuti' is often used in the ordinary sense of 'hymn' in general.176 Mostly, however, especially in more recent terminology, its use is restricted to a particular category of hymnal literature, viz., hymns which are rather aggregates of four separate 'stutis', and eulogize, strictly in this order, (a) any of the Tīrthankaras individually in the first part, (b) all the Tīrthankaras collectively in the second, (c) the Jaina doctrine or the Jaina sacred writings in the third, and (d) any of the Śāsana-devas, Sāsana-devis, Vidyā-devīs, the 'Śruta-devi Sarasvati, or other divinities known to be devoted to the Jaina religion, in the fourth (each part mostly consisting of a single stanza). That this definition is generally accepted, can be seen from the fact that the hymns contained in any random collection of 'stutis', are throughout built according to this scheme.
(Only the followers of a modern sect, known as the 'Tristuti-mata', believe it to be infra dignitatem for a good Jaina to pay homage to beings so much below the moral standard of perfection as
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