Mahavira Jain Vidyalay Suvarna Mahotsav Granth Part 1

Author(s): Mahavir Jain Vidyalaya Mumbai
Publisher: Mahavir Jain Vidyalay

Page 494

VASUDHĀRA-DHĀRANI : 33
and the bodhisattvas and the entire assembly welcomed the preaching of the Lord.”
In 1961, while on a visit to Ahmedabad, I first came to know of of the Vasudhārā-dhāraṇī from Munirāja Sri Punyavijayaji. He knew the Buddhist origin of the work and surprised me by the additional information that the work was being used by the (Svetämbara) Jaina community in their upaśrayas? as a useful text. The Jainas are well known for their liberal attitude towards the use of books originating from their rival schools. Their libraries store them, their acāryas write commentaries on them and even teach them to their disciples in the classical spirit of the Anekantavāda. But we know of no other non-Jaina work than the Vasudhårā-dhāraṇī which was employed in their rituals.
Apparently the origins of this work were forgotten. A Buddhist work, like the image of a Buddha, can be very easily confused with a Jaina work. The words like sarvajña, jina, arhat and vitarāga are a common property of both these schools and could be employed to designate their respective teachers, viz., the Buddha and the Tirthankaras. The opening words of greeting in our three MSS., viz., (A) om namaḥ śrī jina-śāsanāya, (B) om namaḥ śrī jināya, and (C) om namah sri vitarāgaya (the only sign of Jainism found in the whole text) were in all probability appended by the Jaina copyists. It is, however, not inconceivable that these, or one of these, might have been an integral part of the original MS, which formed the basis of our MSS. If this conjecture is right then it could be assumed that the Jainas were misled by this into believing it to be a genuine Jaina work. But sooner or later some learned Jaina as he read through the text and found the teacher referred to as the Buddha would have certainly detected the error. The probability thus remains that the work was introduced in the ritual, with the full knowledge of its alien origin, to assist the Jaina layman in propitiating the goddess of wealth on the New-year day. Once introduced to achieve this purely secular end the Jaina layman conveniently ignored its origin. The Jaina yatis3 who must have recited this stotra also seem to have apparently participated in the ritual with the same spirit, viz., that of assisting the upāsaka in his worldly
2 A place where the Jaina monks live. 3 A person who is considered lower than the monk but higher than
the layman.
GJ.V. 3