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OCTOBER, 1891.)
TWO PATTAVALIS OF THE SARASVATI GACHCHHA.
541
TWO PATTAVALIS OF THE SARASVATI GACHCHHA OF THE
DIGAMBARA JAINS.
BY PROFESSOR A. F. RUDOLF HOERNLE, PH.D. TN respect of the two MSS., which form the basis of the present paper, Mr. Cecil Bendall
1 writes that they were copies made for me by Pandit Chimanlal of Jaipur in Rajputana, when I visited that city in January 1885. Enquiring as I did at every opportunity throughout my Indian wanderings as to the doings of the Jain sect, I was much interested to find that Pandit Chimanlal was not only a Jain, but a member of the more retiring and less known branch of the faith. Dr. Klatt's publication of 'Svêtîmbara pattivalis in this Journal (Vol. XI. p. 245) had rendered me keenly alive to the possible historical importance of these lists. For some time, however, I put these copies aside, under a suspicion that, as I had not seen the MSS. from which they were taken, they might be modern fabrications. On comparing them, however, with the list published in Prof. Peterson's Second Report, of which I must own I had never taken much account (probably owing to the fact that it is in verse and is printed in ordinary Nagarf type without distinction for the proper names or any tabular statement to facilitate reference), I found that the tradition was the same. I accordingly commenced preparing my MSS. for publication, intending to print off MS. B as it stood, noting the main variants, &c., of A and of the list (P) published by Prof. Peterson. I also made the alphabetical table of pontiffs which is printed in the following paper. My studies were, however, impeded by the circumstance that the first part of MS. A is chiefly in a modern language, of which I had no knowledge. This being so, I showed the MSS. to my friend Dr. Hoernle, who most opportunely happened to be visiting England at the time, and it is due to his knowledge of the ancient and modern Jain languages and institutions that the full exposition which here follows is due."
The two manuscripts are referred to in the following remarks, by the letters A and B. MS. A comprises an introduction and the pattavali proper. The introduction gives an account of the early pontiffs from Mahavira down to Bhadrabáhu JI. and his four disciples, the first among whom was Maghanandin, the founder of the Nandisangha. This account is in the form of Gatha verses, quoted from an earlier source, and accompanied by an exposition in a variety of the Bajpatani dialect. The introduction is followed by the pattávali proper, i. e., by a nominal list of the successive pontiffs of the Nandi Sangha or the Sarasvati Gachchha. It commences with Bhadrabahu II., and ends with Bhuvana Kirti, the 108th pontiff, who ascended the chair in Samvat 1840 (A. D. 1783), and was still reigning at the time the original manuscript was written, MS. A, unfortunately, is defective in two places. The pontificates, Nog. 66 - 78 and Nos. 92-104 (both inclusive), are missing. The first lacuna (Nos. 66-78) is, in the following table, filled up from MS. B; but the second lacuna (Nos. 92-104) could not be supplied from that source, as the two manuscripts begin to diverge with Nos. 88.
MS. B contains only the pattavali proper, but it has the advantage of being complete. It also commences with Bhadrabâhu II. in Samvat 4 (B. C.53),and brings the succession down to the 102nd Pontiff, Mahendra Kirti, who ascended the chair in Samvat 1938 (A. D. 1881), and
1 The Digambaras are, I think, the only religious body in India that possess an extensive literature, and yet preserve the old-world Pandits' hostility to printing, once so general. [C. BENDALL)
1 The modern religious literature of Jainism is, of course, much more difficult, to the European student at least, than the ancient. For the Praksit there are at loast a fair number of glossaries, &c.; but for Marwari and the forms of Western Hindt in niso in Jain commentaries and original works, ordinary Hindt dictionaries and grammars are of little avail: and their Gujarati literature (which, we will be seen from the forthcoming ostalogue of Gujarati Books in the British Museum, is extensive) is often such as an ordinary educated Parsi, or even Hindi, cannot understand. [C. BENDALL.]
SAs MS. B only gives the dates of Moceanion, I have filled in the particulars, relating to the length of the different periods of the lives, from another pattayall in my possession which I hope to publish hereafter.
See, however, the first note at the end of the paper, Bhadrabahu may have to be placed 8 years earlier, or in 61 B. C.
