How Jains Know What They Know A Lay Jain Curriculum

Author(s): John E Cort
Publisher: Z_Nirgranth_Aetihasik_Lekh_Samucchay_Part_1_002105.pdf and Nirgranth_Aetihasik_Lekh_Samucchay_Part_2

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John E. Cort
Jambü-jyoti
are intertwined: the author's and singer's devotion to the Jina, based on samyagdarśana or correct faith in the basics of the Jain worldview, is what makes these hymns efficacious; and the Tantric power of the words themselves in these hymns, each of which is understood to be in its entirety a mantra, is what generates the worldly results. We also see in these hymns a concern not for liberation (mokṣa) from the rounds of rebirth, but rather a concern for improving one's wellbeing within rebirths.
Four Prakaranas
The four medieval Prakrit textbooks give the basic Jain teachings on metaphysics, ontology, and cosmology. They have served as the introductory texts for studying these subjects for hundreds of years. Only the more ambitious Jain intellectuals move on from these textbooks to tackle the more difficult earlier texts, both those in the Svetambara "canon" and the systematic treatments of the early Jain philosophers. The commonlyavailable editions of them are sărth or "including explanation": in addition to the Prakrit root text, they provide word-by-word Prakrit-to-vernacular glosses, Sanskrit trots, and extensive vernacular explanations, for ease of comprehension. These scholarly aids are the modern reflections of the copious medieval commentaries on many of these texts.
The 51-verse Jivavicāra is attributed to the same 11th century Vadivetāla Säntisūri mentioned above, but there is not a scholarly consensus in support of this attribution (Mehta and Kapadiya 1968: 166). It provides an extensive catalogue of Jaina ontology, in particular the various forms in which unenlightened souls can embody: from single-sensed through five-sensed bodies, and in the four realms of possible rebirth of humans, heavenly beings, hellish beings, and plants and animals.
Neither the author nor the date of the 30-verse Navatattva are known. This text provides a basic overview of the nine verities (tattva) that are the building blocks of Jain metaphysics: (1) sentient soul (jiva); (2) insentient nonsoul or matter (ajiva); (3) influx of karma into contact with the soul (asrava); (4) bondage of the soul by karma (bandha); (5) meritorious forms of karma (punya); (6) demeritorious forms of karma (papa); (7) blockage of this karmic influx (samvara); (8) dissociation of the soul from karma (nirjarā); and (9) liberation (mokṣa, nirväṇa). There are hundreds of copies of the Navatattva in Jain manuscript libraries, and