Gaina sutras

Author(s): Hermann Jacobi
Publisher: Clarendon Perss

Page 44

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GAINA SOTRAS.
itself; it describes in rather enigmatical language the progress of the faithful towards the highest perfection. The last lecture, a sort of popular ballad on the glorious suffering of the prophet, was perhaps added in later times, but as it stands now it serves well to illustrate and to set a high example of the true ascetic's life. But the greater part of the book is in prose of the most bewildering kind. Frequently we meet with fragments only of sentences, or with sentences which it is impossible to construe. This reminds us of the style of the Brahmanical Sûtras; but there is this difference, that in the last-named works the single aphorisms are the necessary links in the logical concatenation of ideas, while in our book the single sentences or parts of sentences do not seem to be connected with one another in order to carry on the illustration of an idea. They do not read like a logical discussion, but like a sermon made up by quotations from some then well-known sacred books. In fact the fragments of verses and whole verses which are liberally interspersed in the prose text go far to prove the correctness of my conjecture; for many of these 'disjecta membra' are very similar to verses or Pâdas of verses occurring in the Sûtrakritânga, Uttarâdhyayana, and Dasavaikâlika Sûtras. They must therefore be taken as allusions to standard authorities. The same must be assumed of at least some prose sentences, especially those which are incomplete in themselves. Other passages again seem to be added to those quotations in order to explain or to complete them. I shall give a few specimens. I, 4, 1, 3 we read, aho ya râo gata mâně dhire; this is a Pâda of a Trishtubh, and accordingly a quotation. The words which follow, sayâ âgaya pannane, explain the meaning of that quotation, aho ya râo = sayâ, gatamâne dhîre = âgaya pannâne. The text continues pamatte bahiyâ pâsa. This is probably a Pâda of a Sloka; the rest of the sentence, appamatte saya parakkameggå, is the moral application of the preceding one. We should therefore translate : 'Day and night exerting himself and steadfast,' i. e. always having ready wisdom. Look, the careless stand outside,' (there.