Jaina Philosophy Historical Outline

Author(s): Narendra Nath Bhattacharya
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publisher's Pvt Ltd New Delhi

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14 Jain Philosophy in Historical Outline
ture was made by Kamptz in 1929 in his Über die vom Sterbefasten handelenden älteren Painna des Jaina Kanons. Vīrarājendra Suri's Sanskrit encyclopaedia Abhidhānarājendra (1913-25) incorporated numerous Jain Prakrit terms taken from the canonical and scholastic literature of the Svetāmbaras, and this was followed by Muni Ratnacandra's Ardha-Magadhi Dictionary (1923-32) and Hargovind Das Seth's Prakrit Hindi Dictionary. A complete Digambara Jain Dictionary entitled Bṛhat Jaina Śabdārṇava came out in two volumes between 1930 and 1934. The Jain periodicals like Anekānt, Jain Antiquary, Jain Hitaiși etc. made their appearance during this period.
M.D. Desai's Gujarati work Jaina Sahityāno Sankṣipta Itihāsa, dealing with the history of Jain literature, came out in 1933. In 1934, Leumann's unpublished studies in the Avaśyaka literature were edited and published by Schübring whose independent work Die Lehre der Jainas came out a year later. The manuscripts deposited in Bhandarkar Institute were handled by H.R. Kapadia who made a descriptive catalogue of the Jain items, parts II and I of which came out respectively in 1935 and 1936. Its third part was published in 1940 which contains the Agamic literature of the Jains, while the fourth part, published in 1948, contains the ritualistic works and supplements. Kapadia's History of the Canonical Literature of Jains was published in 1941 and his Jain Religion and Literature in 1944. Mention must also be made in this connection to A. Chakravarti's Jain Literature in Tamil (1941). The Jain manuscripts of the Berlin collection were finally catalogued by Schübring in 1944. This volume contains 647 pages covering 1127 manuscripts. Velankar's Jinaratnakoṣa, published in the same year, is a monumental work on Jain manuscripts which is indispensable for the study of Jain literature. The fifth part of Kapadia's descriptive catalogue of the Jain manuscripts came out in 1954, although the subsequent one containing manuscripts on Jain literature and philosophy appeared two years earlier. Another volume consisting mainly of hymnology was published in two parts which appeared respectively in 1957 and 1962. Of recent important contributions reference should be made to B.J. Sandesara and G.P. Thaker's Lexicographical Studies in Jain Sanskrit which came out in 1962. Even in the sixties and seventies of this century the task of collecting and editing the Jain texts and manuscripts has not ceased to continue.
We have already occasion to refer to the earlier historical studies on different aspects of Jainism. In the first volume of the Cambridge History of India (1922) Jarl Charpentier contributed a valuable