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THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE ABSOLUTIVE IN -ŪNA(M)
IN UTTARAJJHĀYĀ
Herman Tieken, Leiden
§ 1. Introduction
The Āyāra, Sūyagada, Dasaveyāliya and Uttarajjhāyā are generally regarded as the oldest texts of the Jaina canon. However, among these four texts the Uttarajjhāyā falls somewhat out of tune. In this text, which mostly consists of śloka, tristubh and vaitālīya stanzas, a strikingly large number of classical āryās is found (see ALSDORF 1966). These āryās, around 130 altogether, form a younger layer representing a more recent metrical practice. The majority of the āryās, 109, is found in the dogmatic and disciplinary chapters in the last third of Uttarajjhāyā. About half of these have been identified by ALSDORF as borrowings from younger texts, such as Pinda and Oha-Nijjutti, Āurapaccakkhāṇa and Maranasamāhi. For these texts BRUHN coined the term “late canonical and post-canonical verse (i.e. āryā) literature” (L.V.L.) (BRUHN 1996). Of the remaining āryā stanzas 17 are found in the legendary chapters and seem to have been composed ad hoc. A special category is formed by vy. 5-15 in the 10th chapter, which are strange patchworks of vaitāliya and āryā Pādas (ALSDORF 1966: 159).
According to ALSDORF, Uttarajjhāyā is an early canonical text with later additions. If I understand ALSDORF correctly he actually postulates an Ur-Uttarajjhāyā, that is, the present version without the classical āryā stanzas.
The author wishes to express his gratitude to Professor T. VETTER for his comments and suggestions. This may be gathered from the following statement: “This would, at first sight [italics mine], indeed seem to indicate that Utt. marks the true beginning of the use of the Āryā in canonical literature - that, as SCHUBRING puts it, we see the āryā "hineinragen" into some of the chapters of the archaic Utt. Actually, however, it can be shown that all the Āryās of Utt. are just as secondary as those very few of Dasaveyāliya and Sūyagada" (ALSDORF 1966: 158). ALSDORF's position on this point is summed up by BRUHN as follows: "Uttarādhyayana itself is an early canonical text with L.V.L. material embedded in seven of its c. thirthy-four metrical chapters" (BRUHN 1996: 9). BRUHN correctly leaves out here the āryā stanzas found in the legendary chapters, which
