Mahaviras Word

Author(s): Walther Shubring
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 17

Mahavira's Words by Walther Schubring
distorts the original that Silanka's viti is indispensable for the wording and meaning. The author is not mentioned. He cannot be the same as the author of the Aydra-Cunni, because in it the Sanskrit plays a much lesser role than here. The cunni on the verses of the Sayagada had often and deliberately read them differently from the text familiar to us; however, only a part of these discrepancies are of the kind which may be important in a translation. The translation does not aim at aesthetic charm; a presentation in a high-flown or archaic language is ruled out by the additions which are essential for the understanding of it and, further, the relation to contemporary language is often closer than one at first might think. Of course, the ambiguous stanzas especially are often open to a different interpretation from the one I have decided to take. As far as this is concerned details may be readily dispensed with if the described basic view is untouched.
XII
The reprint of the canon by the Agamodayasamiti in Mhesana also contains the Лyara and the Sayagada. Nonetheless, I prefer when the need arises, to refer to the edition of samv. 1936 (-1879) sponsored by Raya Dhanapati Simha (Acar. = Acaravṛtti).
By way of an appendix to this foreword, as the basis for the introductory sketch of its classification and origin, I am supplying an overview of the Svetämbara canon.
4 The Sūtrakṛtângacūrṇi by Jinadāsa was published in Ratlam (1941) and the first part edited by Muni Punyavijaya in Ahmedabad: Prakrit Text Society Series No. 19, 1975. The status of the available MSS of the second part is not at all conducive to a critical edition (D. Malvania in a letter to W. Bollée). Jinadasa is just a name like Brahmadatta for the king of Banaras (WB).