Doctrine of Jainas

Author(s): Walther Shubring, Wolfgang Beurlen
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas

Page 14

DOCTRINL or TIL JAINAS of Jina" in his “Essays on the Philosophy of the Hinduis''l, In the same year, 1827, FRANCKLIN'S “Researches on the Tenets of the Jeyncs and Boodhists" were published, the first book that had the Jams in its title. Ils descriptive portions are readable even now, whereas this cannot be said of its mytholo. gical and speculative dcductions
We abstain from cataloguing heic which was printed after 1827, since this can be found in GUERINOT's Bibliograplly (s b). We must confinc ourselves to mention that "Shcich" of WILSON, bccausc it represents thc most important ircatment of the subject at that time. He gives a rcport on thic numerable Jain manuscripts both privately owned by lum and boy thic Calcutta Sanskrit College. His "Descriptive Cataloguc of the Mackenzie Collection''2 dealt with 44 South Indian Jain manuscripts that had come to the East India Company in London. But cven the carlicst essays were partly based upon tcats as was COLEBROOKE'S first one in that it concerned Hemacandra's Abhidhānacıntāmani and the Kalpasūtra of the Jain Canon. Still he made use of both in a selective manner only and was far from editing or translating them completely, and thenty years had to pass until the first Jain tcxt was published. Again it was Hemacandra's work that was cdited by BÖHTLINGK and RIEU with a German translation in 1847 (St Petersburg), whereas the Kalpasūtra, along with the Navatattvaprakarana, appeared in 1848 in STEVENSON's English rendering: That this was a rather imperfect performance is casily cyplained by
1 We should not like to pass over in silence thc carlicst references to the Jains Comp WINDISCH in his Geschichte der indo-trischen Philo. logie etc, p 29 , ZACHARIAE WZKM 24, 337-344 (reprinted in his Kleine Schriften, P41-47) and Festschrst Winternitz p 174-185, RANDLL JRAS 1933, p 147 The Greck glossator Hesychios (5th century AD) mentions 'gennor' as naked philosophers, a word in which M SCHMIDT in his and cd (1867) of Hes P 342 surmises the Jains, comp GRAY and SCHUYLER, Am J of Philol 22 (1901), p 197 LASSEN, Ind Altertumskunde 4 (1861) and LUDERS KZ 38, p 433 are not against SCHMIDT's suggestion, whcrcas STEIN in Megasthenes and Kautilya, p 293 f maintains a cautious attitude
2 The Machenzic Collection A descriptive Cataloguc By HH WILSON C 1828, 2nd cd Madras 1882
3 The Kalpa-Sutra and Nava Tatva Two works illustrative of the Jain religion and philosophy Transl from thic Magadhı by J STEVENSON Lo 1848
4 Comp JACOBI, The Kalpasūtra of Bhadrabāhu, p 27ff.