Jain Journal 2008 04 No 04

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

Page 8

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JAIN JOURNAL : VOL-XLII, NO.4 APRIL 2008
of verses attributed to the Cārvākas, satirical references are made to the futility of such senseless acts. One of these verses cited in SāyaṇaMādhava's SDS reads as follows:
mrtānām api jantūnām śrāddhaṁ cet trptikāraṇam / nirvāṇasya pradīpasya snehaḥ saṁvardhayec chikhām /1.3
Sāyaṇa-Mādhava most probably got the verse from the PC (2.21), where Cārvāka himself is made to speak these words. Yet Hemacandra too quotes this couplet in denouncing Vedic sacrifices in the autocommentary on his YS (2.43), with a minor variant in b. Similarly Mallişeņa quotes the verse in his commentary on Hemacandra's AYVD. There is only a minor variant in c. In all other respects the verse quoted is similar to the reading found in the PC.
It is difficult to believe that Hemacandra would borrow the verse from the Cārvākas, although he preferred to have a pronounced năstika like Cārvāka rather than Jaimini, whom he calls "a demon, in the disguise of an ascetic, mouthing the words of the Vedas.” .
Moreover, it is worth noting that both Hemacandra and Mallişeņa have quoted from the Manu. (3.268) in the same context in which the mặtānām api verse is quoted. Manu enjoins which kinds of animals are to be offered as food for the ancestors : fish for two months, deer for three months, sheep for four months and foul for five months. Hemacandra does not attribute the authorship of the mrtānām api verse to anyone in particular. Mallişeņa however refers rather vaguely to the followers of a “great sși” (pāramarşāḥ). It is therefore conceivable that both Hemacandra and Mallişeņa knew the verse to be of Jain origin and unhesitatingly employed it against the Vedic ritualists in general. Kțsņamiśra apparently made no distinction between the Cārvākas and the Jains insofar as both were anti-Vedic; hence he could make his Cārvāka echo the Jain view vis-à-vis nonviolence, or rather opposition to violence as such, even if it was violence sanctioned by the Vedas.
2. For a collection of such verses, see R. Bhattacharya, 2002. 3. For a detailed discussion of the variant readings of this verse, see K.
Bhattacharya, 2003.