Mahanisiha Studies And Edition In Germany

Author(s): Chandrabhal Tripathi
Publisher: Chandrabhal Tripathi

Page 62

Chandrabhal Tripathi
17.6 Deleu concludes: "It proves altogether impossible, for the time being, to establish the exact date of the Mahānisiha. The comparatively late date of its composition, however, is an incontestable fact. With regard to the old genuine canon the work undoubtedly is apocryphal" (p.1).
17.7 The Jaina tradition does not, on the one hand, ascribe the authorship of the MNA to any person of mythological or historical character, but it does, on the other hand, connect either one person like Jinabhadra-gani or ācārya Haribhadra or several authoritative names with the "editorship" of the MNA. 17.8 The Ms(s), it says, being defective, some scholarly authority had to undertake an "edition", see e.g. the Vividha-tirtha-kalpa or the Prabhāvaka-carita (18.1.7). (Similar reports are current about the Mahābhāsya of Patanjali or the Nātyaśāstra "of Bharata", too). These legends may have originated in the remarks which appear in the MNA itself, which contains some passages in Chap.II-III-IV (see 19) wherein the very deplorable condition of "original Ms(s)" and the regulating efforts to create order in its text by Vajrasvāmin or Haribhadra are clearly mentioned. 17.9 The implications of the term "authorship" in Jaina context in particular are surely not the same as those which are now prevalent. A Jaina author would not, for instance, feel guilty of plagiarism if he cites verbatim or with modifications passages and especially verses from earlier literature, the less so if his source and his activity belong to the "sacred" or "ritual" domain. Mostly he quotes from memory, hence there are ample possibilities of an increase of variants or of standardizing or even normalizing the wording; he may at times use archaic forms to "lend his work a flavour of antiquity" (Deleu,p.1). Such was, it seems, the case with the compiler of the present MNA. He inserted remarks about his "work" at different places, and these remarks later on attracted further remarks (some sentences in III.925, perhaps whole of IV.818). 17.10 In the last century Ernst Leumann believed in the "editorship" of Haribhadra, but, as a result of his further studies for more than twenty years, he revoked his opinion in a letter dated 20th March, 1917, see MNSt.B,p.174,fn.2. Similarly Schubring accepted some connection of the MNA with Haribhadra in his first study in 1918, but in 1963 he is more cautious in his expressions.