Jainas in History of Indian Literature

Author(s): Jinvijay
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown

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JAINAS IN INDIAN LITERATURE
1
In both his works Amitagati is often very satiri cal in his criticism of Brāhmaṇic religion. A book of the same kind as the Subhāṣitaratnasamdoha is the Yoga S'astra of Hemacandra. For this is not a work on Yoga merely in the sense of concentration, nor is it connected with the Yoga system of philosophy, but Hemacandra uses the term Yoga in the more general sense of religious effort, including the whole duty of a pious Jaina of which meditation is only one part. Other works of didactic poetry are the Sṛngaravairagyatarangini and the Sinduraprakara of Somaprabha."
Anthologies of moral maxims have also been compiled by Jainas, such as the Gāthākosa of Municandrasuri (died 1122 A.D.), the Gāthā Sahasri of Samayasundara, and the Prakrit Bhavarairagyasataka,3 in which the religion of Mahāvīra is recommended as the only remedy against the evils of Samsara. An Anthology of Prakrit verses that is not written from the Jinistic
point of view is the Vajjalagga of the Svetambara
1 Edition by the Muni Mahārāja Śri Dharmavijaya Suri in Bibliotheca Indica, 1907 and partly by E. Windizch, with a German translation in Zeitschrift d. D. Morgenl. Ges. 28, 1874, 185 ff and by F. Belloni-Filippi with an Italian translation, in Giornale della Societa Asiatica Italiana, 21, 1908, 123 ff.
2 Edited in Kavyamālā, Part V, 1888, 124 ff. and in Part VII, 1890.
3 Edited and translated into Italian by L. P. Tessitori in Giornale della Soc. As. Ital. 22, 179 ff. and 24, 405 ff. Also edited in Vol. III of the Prakaranaratnakara, edited by Bhimasimha Māṇaka, Bombay, 1876 ff.