Mahavira Jain Vidyalay Suvarna Mahotsav Granth Part 1

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

Page 495

34 SHRI MAHAVIRA JAINA VIDYALAYA GOLDEN JUBILEE VOLUME
pursuits, either not suspecting the origin of the text or ignoring it as a matter of little or no consequence.
There are, however, indications in our MSS. that the dharani was recited not in public places (i. e., the Jaina temples) but in private homes and by non-Jaina teachers or priests. It is stated in the colophon of two (B and C) of our three manuscripts that the stotra should be recited seated on a magic circle (mandala) in the innermost chamber of the house where the treasury is located. The colophon of one MS. (C) further adds that it should be read after offering to the priest (guru) milk, clothes and silver coins. It also states that if at the time of its recitation [the yajamana] enters a room to the left of the recitation chamber, and while attentively listening to the stotra engages in intercourse, a son will be born to him. It is hard to believe that a Jaina monk could easily be persuaded to render a service of this nature even in a private household of a Jaina layman. It appears more plausible that the term guru refers not to a Jaina monk but to a Brahmin priest. It is customary even to this day to find such pûjāris or Brahmin priests employed in the rich Jaina households for the purpose of offering worship of an elaborate nature to the Jaina deities surrounded by devatãs of Jaina and non-Jaina pantheon. The part played by the Vasudhard-dharani in the Jaina community thus appears to have been ultimately restricted to private homes of a few Jainas served mainly by Brahmin priests who might have utilized similar other non-Jaina tantric texts like the Devi-mahatmya or the Candi-stotra popular among the Hindus of Gujarat.
The peculiar circumstance of coming across this hitherto unpublished Buddhist work enjoying the hospitality of its rival community rendered it a very interesting find, and I decided to collect its manuscripts. Three small MSS. (each of six folios) were made available to me by the courtesy of Munirāja Sri Punyavijayaji and Pandit Dalsukh Malvania, Director of the L. D. Institute of Indology, Ahmedabad.
Upon my arrival in London I learnt that Professor J. Brough, Professor of Sanskrit in the University of London, had also obtained two MSS. of this work from Nepal: (1) Vasudhara-dharani (No. 41), (2) Vasudhara-vrata-katha (No. 46a) and one MS. of an allied work called. Sucandråvadana (No. 87). Of these the first and the third are written in Buddhist Sanskrit and the second is in Newārī. One MS. of the Vasudhara-dharani (No. 1355) agreeing with Professor Brough's No. 41 and one of the Sucandrāvadāna (No. 1400) agreeing with Brough's