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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
SRIMAHADEVIVYAKARAŅAM in the interpretation of Veyyākaraña of navangas. So far we were not quite sure as to which portions of the Tripitaka should be placed under the Vyākarana class. Buddhaghosa, probably quite unaware of the existence of a literature to which the present ms. belonged, said that the whole of the Abhidhammapitaka, all suttas in which there are no verses, and all other Buddhavacanas not included in the remaining eight divisions should be called Veyyākarana (Sumangala Vilāsini, p. 24). An interpretation like this seems on the face of it a laboured one. The Mahāyānic interpretation of the Vyākarana 'division of literature is more to the point. According to it, the sūtras like the Gandavyūha, Samādhirāja, and Saddharma-pundarika come under the Vyākaraṇa class (see Aspects of Māhāyāna Buddhism, p. 9). All our doubts, however, about the Vyākarana class of Buddhist literature are set at rest by the present and the following mss. edited in this volume. The chief object of these works is to make a prophecy about the attaintment of Buddhahood by one or more devotees. In this sense, the Nidānakathā of the Jātakas may well be called a Vyākaraņa as it relates the story of Sumedha Brāhmaṇa, and the prophecy made by Dipankara Buddha about his future appearance as the Buddha Sākyamuni. Of the Saddharmapundarika, the sixth and ninth chapters entitled the Vyākaranaparivarta and the eighth chapter Pañcabhiksuśatavyākaranaparivarta are of the Vyākarana type, and the same may also be said of the Gandavyūba which depicts the career of Sudhana until his attainment of Buddhahood, he having been foretold on many occasions about the certainty of his ultimately becoming a Buddha. (See also Šatasābasrikā, p. 309).
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