Jain Journal 2003 07

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

Page 40

RAMKRISHNA BHATTACHARYA:A PROBABLE JAIN SOURCE
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himsā enjoined in the Vedas and Smrtis and denounces Manu and other law-makers as the worst of the năstika-s (năstikebhyo 'pi năstikah, 2.37). 16. See Appendix B. 17. See Ramkrishna Bhattacharya, JICPR, 14:1, 1996, pp. 170-74
and 17:1, 1999, pp. 171-76. 18. Tadetatsarvam bịhaspatināpyuktam. SDS, BORI ed., p. 13 line
109. 19. For details see Ramkrishna Bhattacharya, (n8 above), pp. 609-11
and 626-27. Jābāli, however, does not object to himsā. He is content to point out the futility of offering food to the dead.
APPENDIX A The word, srāddha is generally taken to mean funeral ceremony. But Monier-Williams has rightly observed :
... Srāddha is not a funeral ceremony (antyeshți] but a
supplement to such a ceremony: it is an act of reverential homage to a deceased person performed by relatives, and is moreover supposed to supply the dead with strengthening nutriment after the performance of the previous funeral ceremonies has endowed them to ethereal bodies, indeed until those antyestih or
funeral rites have been performed, and until the succeeding first śrāddha has been celebrated the deceased relative is a preta or restless, wandering ghost and has no real body [ only a lingasarira, q.v.), it is not until the first srāddha has taken place that he attains a position among the Pitsis or Divine Fathers in their blissful abode called Pitri-lioka, and the śro, is most desirable and efficacious when performed by a son. (A Sanskrit-English Dictionary (1899), Delhi : MLBD, reprint 2002. s.v. srāddha.)
APPENDIX B The episode in PPu, Sșstikhanda, Ch. 13, first tells how Bșhaspati (disguised as Sukra) misled the demons (dānavā-s) who wished to learn the way to liberation. Bșhaspati advised them to renounce all yajña and śrāddha (v.316), and remain celibate (vv. 32733). He also spoke vehemently against himsā (319-26).
In another section of the same chapter Māyāmoha (as produced by Keśava) advises the demons further. He first assumes the guise of a Jain ascetic (vogi digambara mundo varhipatradhara, v.346) and than of a Buddhist monk (raktāmbaradhrk, v. 360). In