La Vrai Brahmane Etre Inoffensif Mahane Avihannu Suyagada

Author(s): Colette Caillat
Publisher: Colette Caillat

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Le vrai brahmane, etre "inoffensif", mahane avihannu, Suyagada 1.2.2.5 English summary Suyagada 1.2.2.5 is one of the many difficult stanzas of this old Jain canonical book. In pada (d) the sequence avihannu is generally read as avi hannu (= skr. api hanyamanah). It is attempted here to show that not only the reading a-vihannu is to be preferred (a proposal already found in the SuyCurni), but also that this adjective, far from being a passive form (as above), has an active meaning. It could perhaps continue the rare (1x) Vedic ha-tnu (K.R. Norman). Or it can be a m.i.a. derivative of HAN, with - yu-suffix, or of the active intransitive MIA base hann-a- with suffix -u-. Hence, in the Say stanza, a-vihannu is more or less a synonym of the ardhamagadhi name of the "brahmana", mahane (traditionally analyzed as ma hane, "do not kill", cf. Suy 1.2.3.21), which immediately precedes it in this vaitaliya stanza: the true brahmin or mahana is thus the very incarnation of a-vihimsa (Say 1.2.1.14).