Jain Journal 1974 04

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 77

APRIL, 1974
215
which, is also claimed by the Digambaras.23 A sort of encyclopaedia of Jainism is the Lokaprakāśa 24 by Tejapala's son, Vinayavijaya (1652). On these and similar works our sketch of the Jaina faith is chiefly based.
It may here be mentioned that the Jainas also possess a secular literature of their own, in poetry and prose, both Sanskrit and Prakrit. Of peculiar interest are the numerous tales in Prakrit and Sanskrit with which authors used to illustrate dogmatical or moral problems. They have also attempted more extensive narratives, some in a more popular style, as Haribhadra's Samarāiccakahā, and Siddharsi's great allegorical work Upamitibhavaprapanca Kathā (both edited in Bibl. Ind., Calcutta, 1901-14), some in highly artificial Sanskrit, as Somadeva's Yaśastilaka and Dhanapala's Tilakamañjarī (both published in the Kävyamālā, Bombay, 1901-03, 1903). Their oldest Prakrit poem (perhaps of the 3rd cent. A.D.), the Paumacariya, is a Jaina version of the Rāmāyaṇa. Sanskrit poems, both in purāņa and in kävya style, and hymns in Prakrit and Sanskrit, are very numerous with the Svetambaras as well as the Digambaras ; there are likewise some Jaina dramas. Jaina authors have also contributed many works, original treatises as well as commentaries, to the scientific literature of India in its various branches-grammar, lexicography, metrics, poetics, philosophy, etc.25
4. The Doctrines of Jainism
Jaina doctrines may be broadly divided into (i) philosophical and (ii) practical. Jaina philosophy contains ontology, metaphysics, and psychology. The practical doctrines are concerned with ethics and asceticism, monasticism, and the life of the laity.
i. (a) Philosophy.-The Aranyakas and Upanişads had maintained or were believed to maintain that Being is one, permanent, without beginning, change, or end. In opposition to this view, the Jainas declare that Being is not of a persistent and unalterable nature : Being, they say, 'is joined to production, continuation, and destruction'. 26 This theory, they call the theory of the 'Indefiniteness of Being' (anekāntavāda) ; it comes to this : existing things are permanent only as regards their
28 The Skr. text with a German tr. and explanation has been published by the present
writer in ZDMG, 1X (1906), 287 ff., text and bhasya are contained in the Bibl. Ind. edition (Calcutta, 1905).
Edited by Hiralala Hamsaraja, 3 vols., Jamnagar, 1910. 26 Cf. art. 'Hemacandra', ERE, vol. vi, p. 591. 26 See H. Jacobi, "The Metaphysics and Ethics of the Jainas', in Trans. of the Con
gress for the Hist. of Religion, Oxford, 1908, ii, 60.