Facets of Jaina Religiousness in Comparative Light

Author(s): L M Joshi
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

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FACETS OF JAINA RELIGIOUSNESS
the pañca-namaskāra-mantra, 28 has expressed the view that "it is not certain if the formula originally headed' the Pannavaņāsutta. He has referred to its absence in the Suttāgame edition of this particular Sūtra.29 According to him the formula of fivefold obeisance does not occur in the Svetāmbara Jaina Canon except in a passage of the late Mahānisihasutta. He also quotes the text of the mantra from the BhaktiGucchaka,30 a modern anthology of ritual prayers, and discusses various aspects of its significance and occurrence in the Mahānisihasutta, Pratyekabuddha Karakanąu, the Vasudevahindi and the Satkhandāgama and its commentary, the Dhayalāțīkā. He also notes in this context the importance of the Hāthīgumphā Inscription of King Khāravela.
Since the evolution of this formula is of great significance for understanding the history of Jaina religiousness, the views of Professor Roth deserve a serious notice.
At one place he makes the following observation :
“While we meet with this sacred formula frequently in Jaina ritual-texts of later times, we hardly find any reference to it in the Svetāmbara Jaina Canon. The only one which has become known so far, is the passage included in Mahānisihasutta, III. 5-10. The editors of this text which is usually included in the Cheya-sutta section of the Svetāmbara Jaina Canon have proved its comparatively late date of composition (c. 7th cent. A.D.). They have shown that this text is undoubtedly apocryphal in relation to the old genuine Jaina Canon. It is therefore not surprising when we do not find the Mahānisiha included in the Suttāgame edition of the Svetāmbara Jaina Canon undertaken by the Sthānakavāsins.'31 In this connection, Prof. Roth refers to the works of European scholars like Walther Schubring, H.V. Glasenapp, Jozef Deleu and F.R. Hamm whose contributions to Jaina studies and to the study of the Mahānisi hasutta are well known.32
At another place, he again says that the "The Mahānisiha passage of the Sacred pamca-namokkāra ... is the only one occurring in a text of the Svetãmbara Jaina Canon, as far as I can see. Occasionally we meet with passages in the Canon reading in an abbreviated form :ņamo tthu nam Arahantānam... jāva ... sampattānam. In this abbreviated sentence, however, no pamca-namokkāra formula is concealed."33
Professor Roth observes that the earliest literary evidence of the pamca-namok
28. "Notes on the Pamca-Namokkāra-Parama-Mangala in Jaina Literature" in The Adyar Library
Bulletin, vol. XXXVIII, Mahavira Jayanti Volume, Adyar, 1974, pp. 1-18. 29. Ibid., p. 8. 30. Edited by Balabhadra Jain and published by Rajakrishna Jain, Delhi, 1956. 31. Gustav Roth, op. cit., p. 3. 32. Ibid., p. 3 footnotes 1 and 2. 33. Ibid., p. 7.