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Mahāvira's Words by Walther Schubring
2. World Conquest
A. Śloka. On relapse into worldly inclination. 1. Displeasure for monastic life, pleasure for life; fulfilment of the demands of both. 2. Two special cases: (a) the recidivist a liberator, (b) the displeased one a suppresser of liberation. B. Indravairā. Activity and desire; overcoming them:
C. Prose. Uselessness of the trouble taken for others (1-3) or for one's own benefit (4-5).
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[1.] (Whoever?' is entangled in external things, is (just) at the beginning (of true monastic life); whoever is at the beginning (of true monastic life), is entangled in external things.)
Thus, whoever strives after external things, leads his life as a householder in great difficulty (and) imprudently,
(1.) I have mother, father, brother, sister, wife, sons, 32 daughter, daughter-in-law, friends, relatives, relations, acquaintances; I can have an exchange of manifold objects, luxury articles [and] clothes.'' For the sake of such [things) the world is
in bondage'! ('he leads his life imprudently as a householder, 933 exerting himself day and night, opportunely and inopportunely expending energy, (73) striving for relations, desiring property, squandering [property],) being violent, being one-sided ([according to the saying:] 'here in the world (there is) a fight over and over again'). Short, [however,]34 is the life of people here [on earth);
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29 This sentence, connected with 6, 9f. in my edition (p. 47), is rather to be separated from it and placed in 2D, which therefore would become 2A, correspondingly 2AB would become 2BC, old 2C disappears because, on the basis of Suy. II 1, 38, 6, 22f. and 24f. are not to be separated. One therefore has to regard both ślokapādas as quotations.
30 The verse requires mahā-pariyāveņa. The word mahayā after iti se gun'atthi is perhaps occasioned in recalling iti se mahayā, Sūy. II 2, 29ff.
3 Before this is tam-jahā, "namely", because what follows was apparently better suited to explain more closely the words vase pamatte. The same in 17, 21 below (p. 99).
32 The plural is probably only because of the similar sound with the other words (a). (It is possible, at least grammatically, to take the nouns from bhāyā to sunhā as plurals, but odd to translate sons (plural), and in the singular, brother, sister and daughter. As the speaker is a wealthy man the sense may even pertain to bhajjā, 'wife, wives' (WB).)
33 See footnote 19 above.
** The text says "short truly" (appam ca khalu), because a new thought is intended there with these words. Moreover, instead of people" the text says "some people", for which my edition p. 53 at the bottom (p. above) is to be compared. In his personal copy Schubring in pencil compares Isibhäs. 45, 1; see further his "analysis", p. 18 above. Jacobi 1884, p. 15, however, renders it so: "(Doing so), the life of some mortals (which by destiny would have been long) is shortened" (WB).)
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