Jainas in History of Indian Literature

Author(s): Jinvijay
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown

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JAINAS IN INDIAN LITERATURE
Many of the poetical works of the Jainas are composed in Apabhramsa, and our knowledge of the Apabhraņsa dialects is to a great extent derived from these works, only some of which have hitherto been published, while many more exist still in manuscripts." $8) Scientific and Technical literature of the Jainas
Most valuable contributions have been made by Jainas to Indian Scientific and technical literature.
There are two canonical works, the Sūriyapannattia in which astronomical and geographical subjects are treated, though more from a legendary point of view. But the Sūriyapannatti, is important as belonging like the Jyotişavedānga to a stage of Indian astronomy which was not yet influenced by the astronomical science of the Greeks. In the Nandi and the Anuogadāra we find allusions to Alamkārasāstra, Arthasāstra, and Kāmasāstra.
1. Hist. Ind. Lit. Vol. II, pp. 511, 532, 543, 570 ff., 589,
,637 ; see also Rai Bahadur Hiralal, Catalogue of Sans
krit and Prākrit Mss., Nagpur, 1926, p. XLIII ff. 2. An edition of the Jambuddīvapannatti by W. Kirfel
is to be published by the Jaina press in Ahmedabad. An account of Jaina Cosmography has been given by the same scholar in his "Kosmographie der Inder”, Bonn-Leipzig, 1920, pp. 208 ff. On Jaina geography see also Court F. L. Pulle, la cartografia antica dell' India (Studi italiani di Filologia Indo-Iranica, Vol. IV),
Firenze, 1901 pp: 14 f., 19. f., 35 ff. 3 On the achievements of the Jainas in astronomy see also
E. Loumann in Actes du sixieme congres internats des Orientalists tenu en 1883 a Leide, III, p. 552 ff. A Jaina summary of astrology is the Jyotişasāroddhāra by Harsa kirtisūri, the disciple of Candrakirtisūri (see India Office Catalogue V, pp. 10638. ).