Mahavira Jain Vidyalay Suvarna Mahotsav Granth Part 1

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

Page 521

60 : SHRI MAHAVIRA JAINA VIDYALAYA GOLDEN JUBILEE VOLUME
These two verses agree here in the same way of looking at täi, insomuch as they closely link it with the sacred Great Vows.
Reviewing the six references about täi collected from the Jaina Śvetāmbara Siddhānta 46 we may try to define tãī as follows: "Such a (cautious) saint, who is under the strict observance of the five Great Vows, who has abandoned all fetters and who is standing firm in the absolutely absorbed thought (samahi) through the medium of kevala nāna."
In all these cases täi stands by itself not being used in a line as an epithet of Bhagavān Mahāvīra or of other Jina. In Sūy. II. 6.20 and 24 tăi also stands by itself and yet the close relation of tāi and Bhagavān Mahāvīra is demonstrably evident here.
In the Jaina Sanskrit texts, however, tāyin is connected with Mahāvīra as an epithet. Theodor Zachariae, Beiträge zur Indischen Lexicographie, Berlin 1883, p. 76 quotes : Arhate Yoginăthāya Mahávīrāya Tāyine, and : namaḥ śrīmad-Anantāya Vitaragāya Tāyine, from Mahendra's Commentary on Hemacandra's Anekārthasamgraha.
In Śrī Jinasenasūri's Harivamsapurānam47, composed in Sanskrit at about the 8th century A.D. we read the following Sloka :
Astamasyendra-justasya
Kartre Tirthasya Tāyine Candraprabha-Jinendrāya
Namas Candrābha-kārtaye || Translation : “Veneration to Him, who is the eighth [Tirtha kara], who is favoured by Indra, who is the actor, who is the ford, who is the guardian48, to Candraprabha, the Lord of the Jina, to him, whose glory is like the splendour of the moon."
Here we will not hesitate to see the meaning of "guardian or saviour" in tāyin, as this meaning is well attested by the contemporary Mahāvyutpatti-lexicon, by the Sanskrit Commentators and by Hemacandrācārya's Abhidhānacintamani (12th cent. A. D.).
46 There are many more references about tai in the AMg Canon. I may
refer here only to the Sloka in Dasaveyāliyasutta VII. 67: Vibhüsă-vattiyan c'eyam buddhā mannanti tārisam
sāvajja-bahulam c'eyam n'eyam tāihim seviyam || 47 Prakāśikā: Manikyacandra-Jainagranthamālā-samitih, Publisher :
Nāthurām Premi, Hirābāg, Bambai, p. 2. 48 Var. lect. pālakāya, o. c., p. 2, noted under the line.