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APPENDIX II
A NOTE ON THE ĀGAMIC ACTIVITY CARRIED
ON IN THE AGE OF LOGIC As we shall see, the main tendency of the age of Logic was considerably different from that of the age of Agamas but some sort of Agamic activity was carried on even in the age of Lɔgic. For one thing, a series of authors beginning from Haribhadra and coming upto Abhayadeva, Malayagiri, Maladhāri Hemacandra wrote Sanskrit commentaries on the Agamic texts. These authors invariably and admittedly fell back upon the old Prakrit commentaries available to them, from which they often qoute more or less lengthy passages. Thus they sought to remain loyal not only to the original words of the old Āgamic texts but also to the words of the old Prakrit commentaries. But these Āgamic texts and these Prakrit commentaries belonged to two different stages of doctrinal evolution while the Sanskrit commentators themselves belonged to a third such stage. This fact has to be clearly kept in mind by a modern student if he is not to lose sight of historical perspectives. And to make his task easy, some important Prakrit commentaries on the Agamic texts are available in full. We have already taken note of Avašyakaniryukti and Viseşāvašyakabhāşya; but there are other Niryuktis and there are other Curņis from which those related to the philosophically important Āgamic texts have to be selected and made use of. The Digambaras naturally had no Āgmic text to comment on but they did justice to Sakhandāgama and Kaşāyaprābhịta by writing on them those three commentaries mentioned earlier (one on the former two on the latter); Yativisabha's commentary is in pure Prakrit but Virasena and Jinasen while mainly employing Prakrit occasionally resort to Sanskrit. This was the chief Agamic activity carried on in the age of Logic. But to the same category belongs the tendency to compose Karma-texts. Within the Svetāmbara camp the karma doctrine was fully developed and systematised in Sivašarmasüri's Sataka and Karmaprakệti and some anonymous author's Saptatika but the high water-mark of the endeavour came in Candrarşi's Pancasangraha whose study renders superfluous a study of its three predecessors. And the character of Satkhandāgama and Kaşāyaprabhịta being what it is the Digambara counterpart of Pancasangraha are those three commentaries on these very texts. What was written after Pancasangraha in the Svetāmbara camp and after the commentaries in question in the Digambara is of the natuare of school-boy's text-books. With Svetāmbaras they are what they call four old Karmagranthas (by four different authors) and what they call five new Karmagranths (by Devendrasūri); with the Digambaras they are Nemicandra's Gommatasara, Amitagati's Sanskrit Pancasangraha. This whole Karma literature too has to be consulted and made use of.
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