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Kundakunda: The Pravacanasāra 157 detailed examination, for they provide some indicators of major changes in Jaina religious practice, and help to clarify the even greater changes implicit in Kundakunda's less orthodox doctrines.
At Pravacanasāra 3:16 himsā is defined (in Upadhye's translation) as follows:
Careless activities of a monk when sleeping, sitting, standing and walking, are always known as continuous harm unto living beings.
This would seem to be the most natural rendering, i.e. himsā is harm to living beings as a result of careless physical actions on the part of the monk. Prima facie, this is a purely orthodox doctrine such as might be found in the Dasaveyāliya Sutta. Amrtacandra, however, interprets it in the Tattvadipikā in terms of Kundakunda's upayoga doctrine, an interpretation reflected in Faddegon's translation: 'Heedless action in lying, sitting, standing, going, etc., is considered to be at all times continual hurt (himsā) to the śramana-state!.
Thus Amstacandra (and Faddegon) take the Prākrit samaņassa to be equivalent to the Sanskrit śrāmanyasya, rather than śramaṇasya, i.e. they add the suffix -ya- to śramana and so turn it into an abstract meaning 'śramanastate'. 74 There seems to be no linguistic justification for this, but, as we shall see, it is resonant in terms of doctrinal change. (And although the original Prākrit gāthā may not be by Kundakunda, the interpretation given in the commentary demonstrates the kind of practice his upayoga doctrine implies, and is thus highly relevant to the present enquiry.) The Tattvadīpikā is worth quoting in full here. Amrtacandra's introduction to the Prākrit gāthā tells us that this is a definition of what constitutes cheda - 'infringement' or, more specifically, an offence against the monastic rules. The commentary proper states:
74 Cf. Pravac. 2:98 where samannam = śrāmanyam.
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