Mahaviras Word

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

Page 30

The Canon of the Svetāmbara Jainas bhagavanto and the Pannavaņā to Ajja Sāma. 3) The questioning is very often in such a way that it already unveils the knowledge of the disciple about the subject to be discussed. Thus this does not have to do with a description of an incident, but with a form of the presentation which became advisable because it combined the impression of antiquity with educational practicality. In the three large Uvangas already mentioned the obvious step is already taken to order the content which is bound together in this form according to a plan; thus, the classification of beings and the conception of the world are found enclosed in the Jivābhigama, the entire dogmatics in the Pannavaņā, and in the Jambuddivapannatti that part of the world after which it is named. The Uvavāiya, from 62 onwards, contains further systematic questioning, that is, it concerns rebirth and liberation; further, the Tandulaveyāliya deals with the clarification of physiological views; and the Samavāya in the second part of the appendix which discusses the construction of the world and the attributes of beings and, as we shall still see (p. 15 below), has been inserted there because of an extraneous reason.
The model for all these texts has been the Viyāhapannatti. In it, the “Proclamation of the Explanations”, the fifth work of the canon, whatever could not be inserted into the scheme of numbers controlling the third and fourth Angas has been collected from the teaching of the faith. The result is a colourful admixture that should also be expressed by the name saya, "a group of hundred”, for the large sections. This variety of content one finds above all in Saya 1-20 which constitute the core of the work. Corresponding to them is also Saya 25, whereas 24, 30 and 41 individually, and 21-23 (classified firstly in vagga), 26–29, 31 and 32 and, at least, 33, 34, and 35-40 are of uniform content. Whether one of these is an addition which was once regarded as an independent Viyāhacūliyā, and which one, is unknown. The apparent irregular series of instructions, the scene of which often changes, does not permit such an ordering that one would find a train of thought to which they might be attached; a few explanations present themselves only formally. References to other works are quite numerous, especially to the Pannavaņā and the Jīvābhigama (or to the Divasāgarapannatti, see p. 14 below), but also to Uvavõiya, Rāyapaseņaiya, Nandi and the Āyāradasão. On the one hand, they may be traced back to the desire (11) (to show that wherever there is a lot, there would be everything; but on the other hand, in the Viyahapannatti a topic is sometimes introduced, sometimes explained through a reference to the main place which sometimes precedes or
* See Schubring 1935 8 48.