Jaina Ontology

Author(s): K K Dixit
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 95

82
JAINA ONTOLOGY
karma and praksti looks very much like a piece taken away from some spot within the body of Anuyogadvāra. Of course, these precisely are the topics whose discussion is pretty miscellaneous inasmuch as it does not naturally fall within one of the three great divisions into which the Șaikhandāgama material can easily be resolved; (these divisions can be designated Javakhanda, Karmakhanda, Pudgalakhanda. But that is not the point, For the noteworthy thing is that the two important topics vedanā and bandhana here appear in the company of four such topics as are not only not important but have no intrinsic relation to those two important topics. [Virasena suggests that the six topics in question are the first six in a list of 24 which formed the contents of a Pūrva-text. Not only that, he from his own side offers an account of the alleged remaining 18 topics - in the course of which he discusses most of those problems which had attracted the attention of the post-Satkhandāgama generations of Karma specialists. But little valuable emerges from all his For even if there was an old list of 24 topics as described by Virasena the items of this list could not have meant what Virasena takes them to mean. ] The conclusion seems to be that somebody did discuss together the six topics in question which were unrelated to each other and of which two were important, four unimportant, Hence our surmise that the sections IV and V of Şakahndāgama constitute one text and the reason why it should have come comparatively late is that it deals with the problem of karmodaya which was comparatively late to engage the attention of the Karma specialists. Be that as it may, sooner or later Şarkhandagama received its present form and with such a text at his disposal the Digambara student could afford to dispense with the old Āgamic texts like Bhagavati, Prajñāpanā, Jivabhigama. That he did dispense with them early enough is almost certain. For hardly do we find a Digambara author refering to the wording of an Agamic text - which would not have been the case if the repudiation of the current Āgamic texts was a comparatively late phenomenon.
In this connection let a few words also be said about Kaşāyaprabhta, The text is less important in itself but more so on account of its two commentaries, an earlier one by Yativrsabha and a later one by Virasena, [ The latter - the famous Jayadhavala – was left incomplete by the author and was completed by his disciple Jinasena ). In any case, the over-all value of the small Kaşāyaprabhịta is much inferior to that of the voluminous Şakhandāgama. For in Sałkhandāgama (made up of aphorisms) problems are treated in a very systematic form while looseness of form is a striking feature of Kaşāyaprabhịta (made up of verses). In the latter it often happens that the questions are just posed with no answer forthcoming; this, for example, is the case with the first six (out of fifteen) topics taken up for consideration (there is even doubt whether these are six topics —