Book Title: Charlotte Krause her Life and Literature
Author(s): Shreeprakash Pandey
Publisher: Parshwanath Vidyapith

Previous | Next

Page 438
________________ 10. Gandhārī 11. Sarvāstrā Mahājvālā 12. Mānavī Ancient Jaina Hymns Mahavidya No. No. 21 2 and Vidyanikāya No. 3 13. Vairotyā 14. Acchuptă 15. Mānasī 16. Mahāmānasī.... Jain Education International Vidyā-nikāya No. 4 No. 8 (Jvālā ) No. 11 No. 19 No. 20 No. 12 For Private & Personal Use Only .... No. 7 or 10 No. 13 **** No. 15 No. 16 B. C. Bhattacharya ( 1c. p. 164 ), who also noticed that there are "clear points of identity between Vidyā-devīs and Śāsana-devīs, not only regarding names, but also attributes, etc.", has come to the conclusion that "the Vidyā-devīs in conception were modelled after the Yakṣiņis", and this "on the ground of the priority of the Yaksiņis as connected in mythology and ritual with the Tīrthankaras". It does not seem, however, that such a priority can be proved for the Śāsanadevīs as a class, leaving aside individual cases. I think, the above synopsis goes, on the contrary, strongly against this theory. For, the list of the Vidya-devīs of the Śvetambaras (vide ‘Nirvāṇakalika') exactly agrees with that of the Digambaras (vide ‘Pratiṣṭhāsära') not only with regard to the names themselves, but also to their order (deviations being restricted to their attributes), while, on the other hand, the lists of the Śāsanadevīs ( vide the same two works) differ from each other so strikingly both in names and order (not to speack of the attributes) that in fact only three out of the 24 can be recognized at first sight as mutual replica (viz., Nos. 1, 23 and 24). This leads to the conclusion that the common list of the Vidya-devīs must go back to the time before the schizma of the Jaina-sangha into Digambaras and Śvetāmbaras had occurred, and that it has been handed down unaltered from generation to generation up to this day, while the lists of the names of the Śāsana-devīs, 393 www.jainelibrary.org

Loading...

Page Navigation
1 ... 436 437 438 439 440 441 442 443 444 445 446 447 448 449 450 451 452 453 454 455 456 457 458 459 460 461 462 463 464 465 466 467 468 469 470 471 472 473 474 475 476 477 478 479 480 481 482 483 484 485 486 487 488 489 490 491 492 493 494 495 496 497 498 499 500 501 502 503 504 505 506 507 508 509 510 511 512 513 514 515 516 517 518 519 520 521 522 523 524 525 526 527 528 529 530 531 532 533 534 535 536 537 538 539 540 541 542 543 544 545 546 547 548 549 550 551 552 553 554 555 556 557 558 559 560 561 562 563 564 565 566 567 568 569 570 571 572 573 574 575 576 577 578 579 580 581 582 583 584 585 586 587 588 589 590 591 592 593 594 595 596 597 598 599 600 601 602 603 604 605 606 607 608 609 610 611 612 613 614 615 616 617 618 619 620 621 622 623 624 625 626 627 628 629 630 631 632 633 634 635 636 637 638 639 640 641 642 643 644 645 646 647 648 649 650 651 652 653 654 655 656 657 658 659 660 661 662 663 664 665 666 667 668 669 670 671 672 673 674