Doctrine of Jainas

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

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DOCTRINE OF THE JAINAS expressed by the figure of 84 (§ 16), but only few of them have come to gain any considerable and lasting importance. Thanks to the disposition of the Jains for chronicling we have comprehensive lists of teachers to inform us accordingly. They usually go by the name of pattāvali in the sense of pattadhar’āvali since in this connexion patta means "place of honour, throne”. He who occupies it bears the title of Sürı, and he personally appoints his successor. Frequently the lists (chronicles) are traced back to Sudharman, or even to Mahāvīra who, however, is not everywhere considered as pațta-dhara.3 The Upakeśa-Gaccha, to refer to this list first, even goes back to Pāsa which follows from an intended relation to Kjeśin, the disciple of Pārsva known from Uvanga. The fabulous pattāvali of this Gaccha probably written in the 2nd half of the 17th century,4 proves as an exception to the rule that these chronicles are mines of reliable dates regarding the history of Jain Orders and writings. Upakeśa is said to be the later Os near Jodhpur from where the commercial Jain caste of the Osvāl derive. A collection of the Svet. lists in a Pattavalisamuccaya has been started by Muni DARSANAVIJAYA (Bh. 1, Căritrasmāraka-GM. 22. Viramgam 1933). Now it is Dharmasāgara who, in a Prakrit-Gurvävali? with an individual Sanskrit comment, notes the history of the TapāGaccha who, so he says, took this name but as the sixth after that
1 Comp the lists given by Muni JINAVIJAYA in Jaina-SāhityaSamsodhaka 3, 30-34
2 Other proofs are the prašasti at the end of Tain works and the Dijnaptı, annual reports in the shape of letters (partly illustrated) Comp. the exhaustive study by Muni JINAVIJAYA Vijnapti-triveni (Bh 1916), also K P J (AYASWAL)JA 46, 276.
3 (tirthakslām) svayam eva tirtha-pravacanena kasyāpı pattadharatvābhāvāt Dharmasāgara on verse 2 of his Gurvāvali as against the Kharataras presently to be mentioned.
4 Transł by HOERNLE IA 19, 233-242; complete text JINAVIJAYA in Jaina-Sahitya-Samsodhaka 1, Pattavalisam (sec presently) 1, 177-194.
5 A second exception is the "apocryphal Pattāvali" rendered by KLATT in Festgruss an Bohtlingk (1888, P 54-59)
6 For the names of 17 Paft s see KLATT-LEUMANN IA 23, 170
7 KLATT, IA II, 251-256, WEBER Verz II, 651 f 997-1015, for this and for chronistic predecessors and successors of Dh sce KLAT LEUMANN IA 23, 179; compl text and comm Pattayalisam. 1, 41-77, followed by further Tapā-tradition.