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A Special Relevance of Suttani päta for Jaina Studies
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evil act either through body or through speech or through mind evolved comparatively later. As a matter of fact, this new formulation was meant to replace that original one inasmuch as an evil act com nitted by oneself was equated with such an act committed through body, an evil act got committed by someone else was equated with it committed through speech, while an evil act approved of when committed by someone else was equated with it committed through mind. In course of time this relationship between the two formulations was forgotten and it became customary to speak of a triple evil act committed in a triple manner-i. e. an evil act committeci through body, speech or mind and in each case it either committed by oneself or committed by someone else or approved of when committed by someone else. As for the standard list of evil acts one that gradually crystallized contained five items-viz. violence, falsehood, theft, Incontinence, acquisitiveness; and to it was often added a sixth item in the form of nightly eating. The culmination of this whole development is to be seen in Daśayaikālika Chapter IV where the six evil acts in question are spoken of and in the case of each mention is made of 'a tripl: evil act committed in a triple manner.' Something like the same development Is hinted at in Suttanipāta 393-401. For here in vv. 394-399 five evil acts are spoken of and in each cise mention is made of 'an evil act committed by oneself or got com nitted by someone else or approved of when committed by someone else' As for the identity of these five evil acts they are the same as those included in the basic Jaina list but with one exception; for here the item 'drinking' takes the place of the item 'acquisitiveness' of that list. This whole treatment seems to b self-closed but in v. 400 a bare mention is made of six evil acts-viz. the five just described and a sixth in the form of ‘nightly eating'. This latter too might be a self-closed treatment but maybe it is not so. For v. 401 mentions two more evil acts, viz. 'employment of garlands-and-perfume' and 'sleeping except on bare ground-or-cot', and it concludes by saying, “This eightfold pious conduct (in the form of desistence from the eight evil acts under consideration) has been made public by Buddha'-so that it might be likely that v. 400 and v. 401 were composed together. Viewing thus one should be in a position to detect in the present section of Sutttanipāta certain tendencies characteristic of Jaina speculation. They are :
(i) To speak of an evil act as committed by oneself or got committed by someone else or approved of when committed by someone else;
(ii) To for nulate a basic list of five evil acts – where four items are violence, falsehood, theft, incontinence;
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