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On....... Pundarzka Adhyayana
mediate direction, and who knew how to get it, while staying at the bank, commanded the lotus to fiy up (and fall into his hands) and there the lotus responded ! (See here the appended original text))
The succeeding two sūtras (644-645), in point of fact, represent not the text proper but probably an early niryukti or commentary which ascribes the lotus-pond allegory as well as the exposition of its metaphorical meaning to “Samaņa Bhagavam Mahāvira" himself. By style and construction, motivation and phrasing this part seems younger than the preceding textual part by about a couple of centuries. In this part Mahavira is reported to have explaincd the allegory by saying that the world ( loka ) signifies the pond (puskarani); deeds (karma) represent (pond's) water and worldly pleasures (kama-bhoga), mud (seta). The people at large ( jana-jānapada) are the lotuses and the king (raya) is that centrally situated great lotus (ege maham paumavara-pundarika). The four men (catrāri puruşāh) stand for four different creeds (anya-tirthas), the monk (bhikkhü) the genuine Law (dharma), the bank of the pond (tira) charmatirtha and the words (uttered by the monk) dharma-kathā; while the “flying up" of the central great) loius is liberation (nirvāņa).
The Ācārānga Book I (particularly its Chapters 1-6) contains the main maximic and aphorismic phrases and statements of Mahavira (together with the short and archaic explanatory summaries thereof, partly perhaps by an apostle, gañadhara, and partly by Arya Bhadrabāhu) and it may thus collectively date from c. B. C. 500-300. The oldest part of the Pundarrika-adhyayana, by comparison and by virtue of its language as well as cadence and style, almost approaches that hoary antiquity and in any case does not seem later than c. B. C. 300-200. In point of fact, inside the bulk of the Kathānuyoga class of texts in the canon (where the paragraphs usually start with 'tałe nam se', 'tise nam se', etc), the Pundarika-text by its archaic style, feel, phrasing, and content seems by far the oldest known up-to-date.
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