Mahaviras Word

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

Page 33

Mahavira's Words by Walther Schubring
however, allows the Jinacariya and Theravall to be placed before the Pajjosavaṇākappa mangalartham, a view that is sufficiently explained by non-historical observation.
One can notice a borderline case for implementing the need for order in the substitution of missing texts or parts of them by others. Canonical passages adequately demonstrate that texts were lost, and Weber (1885, pp. 87-90) (13) has made a list of them at the end of his major treatise. This list, however, becomes shorter firstly insofar as the probability noted by him, that a number of allegedly independent texts are at present still extant as parts of bigger works, in many cases has to be considered as being a certainty. Secondly, since Weber wrote, several have appeared in print or as manuscripts: Maraṇavibhatti, Arahaṇāpaḍāgā, Angavijjä, the Angaculiya and at least a part of the Vaggaculiya. However, there are still sufficient open gaps, and to these are added others which are more or less hidden where a heading announces a text which in fact is not there. The case of the Candapannatti is most conspicuous. References in the canon unquestionably demonstrate that this doctrine of heaven based on the moon originally preceded the Sarapannatti which is based on the sun. Whether this (former) is supposed to be incorporated in that (latter) and still to be found today in it as pahuḍa 10ff., or whether it fell into oblivion in the shadow of the important work, in any case the manuscripts found until now contain nothing other than the Surapannatti under the title of the Candapannatti, certainly the easiest form in which to bestow upon a text disappeared from the list a kind of continued existence. Other gaps are concealed by new texts, to the least extent in Suy. I 16 where the name gähä does not entail stanzas but prose (see Bollée 1990, pp. 29-52 (WB)).
For the Panhävägaranäim, as indeed for all the Angas from the seventh onwards, there is a table of contents in Thana 10 which proves to be reliable on the basis of evidence provided in other texts. According to it the text should, as the name also indicates, deal with answers to questions about the doctrine" whereas today we have a continuous presentation; moreover, the presentation of the five great vows differs from the Bhavana of the Ayära, thus a completely different work. In the old form the second half of the Nayadhammakahão is also missing because, of both the main parts promised in the introduction, the Näyäim, "exemplary narratives" and Dhammakahão, "sermons", only the first is still extant, the second replaced in the
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40
40 Jacobi 1879, p. 23.
41 Should the Khomaga-pasiṇaim and the Addāga-pasinaim, "questions because of a cloth" and "questions because of a mirror", be preserved at least partly in the Pannavana (folio 436b)? A person, as it says there, sees in the mirror (addaya) neither himself nor other objects held in front of it, but the image of the mirror. A cloth rolled up occupies the same space as one spread out, an upright pillar the same as one on the floor. These comments in the Pannavana sound strange. Weber's interpretation 1883, p. 334' is different.