Date of Kundakundacharya

Author(s): M A Dhaky
Publisher: Z_Aspect_of_Jainology_Part_3_Pundit_Dalsukh_Malvaniya_012017.pdf

Page 13

The Date of Kundakundācārya
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cārya completely redefines the terms svasamaya and parasamaya, the terms which for long had been understood as the 'doctrine of one's own sect' and 'the doctrine of the other's sect'. According to Kundakundācārya, svasamaya is the one whichrelates to atman, the parasamaya meant anything outside ātman including one's body. This is an absolutely different way of looking at the connotation of the terms, indeed not referred to by even Southern Jaina writers. (d) Between the two categories of śubha (auspicious and desirable) and ašubha (inauspicious and undesirable ), he creates a third category, śuddha (pure) which really is the true and intrinsic disposition of the ātman or Self. This conceptual improvement is earlier unknown. (e) Kundakundācārya is fully aware of the terms syadvāda and saptabhangi both of which are unknown in the works of Umāsvāti as well as of Siddhasena, but known to Samantabhadra (c. A.D. 550-625). It was Samantabhadra who for the first time uses these terms and formulates a doctrine based on them. (f) Likewise, the original Upanisadic classification of antarātmā (inner Self), bāhya or bahirātmā (outer self; outer body) and paramātmā ( Absolute Self) is mentioned by Kundakundācārya with some difference in detail and hence of implications. Already, Pūjayapāda Devanandi (C. A.D. 635680 ) had adopted these terms, though before him it is totally unkown in Jaina writings. Kundakundācārya possibly took these terms and their conceptuality from Devanandi.
There are, in point of fact, several other major and minor points of significance which would not have been in the writings of Kundakundācārya if he were to flourish in the 1st century B. C.-A. D. His style of writing and phraseology then would have been archaic, the jargon as well as as the concepts and their presentation would have been far less advanced thap is apparent in his writings.
NOTES AND REFERENCES
1. "Introduction”, Pravacanasāra, Srimad Rājacandra Jaina Šāstramāla, 3rd edition, Bombay 1964, p.21. His "Introduction” in this third edition seemingly is the same as in the second edition of 1935. In the third edition of 1964, in the "Post Script” (pp. 121-126 ), he includes ( by way of notes, and rather selectively ) the results of Kundakunda researches got by a few other scholars published since his second edition. Also cf. his "Intro.," p. 22.
2. Jaina-Sahitya-ka Itihāsa ( Hindi ), Pt. 2, śri Gañesaprasāda Varņi Jaina Granthamala-27, Varanasi 1976, p. 125.
3. F.W. Thomas "Introduction", Pravacanasāra, Cambridge 1935, pp. 16 ff. He places Kundakundācārya prior to Umāsvāti. So does Walther Schubring in The Doctrines of the Jainas, First Edition 1962, reprint, Delhi 1978, p. 58, on the basis