Mahanisiha Studies And Edition In Germany

Author(s): Chandrabhal Tripathi
Publisher: Chandrabhal Tripathi

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Chandrabhal Tripathi
pancamangala. A number of illustrative stories are embedded in the text; and throughout it is impressed with the idea that devotion to monastic life must be without any condition.
It is to that great savant, Prof. Dr. W. SCHUBRING, the unquestioned authority on the Jaina canonical studies, that we owe the first critical study of this work (Das Mahānisīha-sutta, Berlin 1918). Later, along with F.-R. HAMM he gave us an edition (in the above studies, No.6. Hamburg 1951) of Chapters VI-VIII, with a critical observation, variants and lists of words. More or less on the same pattern are presented here the remaining Chapters (I-V) of the Mahānisīha, the first three by J. DELEU and the other two by W. SCHUBRING himself. Here, however, in addition to the critical Introductions etc. we are given the translations of the chapters edited, in English by DELEU and German by SCHUBRING. These renderings are very meticulous and very useful for the study of the contents of this work in details.
The problems about the authenticity of the text as a whole and its age are very intriguing. May be that the work has grown from time to time round an older kernel, something like the Chapter VII, the Pacchittasutta. The internal references, the nature of the language and the verbose style clearly indicate, as shown in the Preliminary Note, a comparatively late date for this work. The association of a number of authors with it, as culled out from various traditions, is uncertain and complicated. We get here a good glimpse into the critical apparatus of the Editors who have presented a dialectally normalized text according to accepted discipline for Prākrit works of this class. With the entire text duly published it should now be possible for others to work out in details the relation of the Mahānisīha with other texts of the Jaina canon and allied branches of Indian literature.
Dr. W. SCHUBRING and his younger colleagues have given us a worthy edition of this work which really enriches our knowledge of the Jaina monastic literature and enhances the prestige of the Series in which it has appeared.
A.N.UPADHYE, KOLHAPUR
110.3 MNSt.B.1963 reviewed by K.R.NORMAN in BSOAS.27.1964, pp.631-2
In 1918 Professor Schubring published Das Mahānisiha-Sutta (APAW,1918), a survey of the form and contents of the Jain canonical Cheyasutta text. In 1951. he published, with Dr. F.-R. Hamm, a critical edition of chapters VI-VIII of this text, and now in collaboration with Dr. J. Deleu he has produced this edition of the first five chapters, Deleu being responsible for I-III and Schubring himself for IV-V. The edition is based upon the MSS used in 1951 and two others which have become available since then. One of these contains a Gujarāti fabbā which has proved, however, 'disappointingly insignificant'.
Dr. Deleu prefixes to his section an introduction in English, and adds an English translation. Professor Schubring gives a brief introduction and a somewhat truncated translation, both in German. Both editors give explanatory notes and lists of selected words, and correct where necessary the 1918 and 1951 publications. In his introduction Dr. Deleu gives a survey of the interesting features of the grammar of chapters I-III, and draws attention to some points not mentioned in Pischel's grammar, including such contractions as indi- < indiya-, and the use of adverbial genitive forms in -assa e.g.