Note on Hemchandras Abhidhanchintamani and Sanskrit Karmavati

Author(s): Nalini Balbir
Publisher: ZZ_Anusandhan

Page 4

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अनुसन्धान-५४ श्रीहेमचन्द्राचार्यविशेषांक भाग-२
Hemak'andra's Abhidhānacintāmaņi, ein systematisch Angeordnetes Synonymisches Lexicon. Herausgegeben, übersetzt und mit Anmerkungen begleitet (St. Petersburg, 1847). Their edition is based on five different manuscripts and makes use of a commentary, accessible to them in one manuscript of the Bodleian Library (Oxford). This commentary, where Sanskrit and vernacular language (bhāṣā) are used, is copiously quoted in the accompanying notes.
Hence the Abhithānacintāmaņi belongs to those few Jaina works which were edited by Western scholars in the early period of Indology and in the infancy of what became Jaina studies.
(2)
The Abhidhancintāmani is a comprehensive storehouse of Sanskrit words of all kinds. But it is also a dictionary of all topics that relate to the foundations of Jainism and the specificities of the Jaina conception of the world. We have already referred above to section I (devādhidevakānda). It deals with the concept of Arhat through its 25 denominations, listing the 24 Jinas of the present era, giving synonym names for some of them. Their bio-data and characteristics are also given: names of their fathers and of their mothers, of their yakşas and yaksis, of what is called dhvaja (in other texts lāñchana) and the colour of their body. Names of the 24 Jinas of the past and those of the future are then listed. The supernatural features (atisaya) characterizing all the Jinas are defined through adjectives (1.57). Proceeding in such a way, Hemacandra follows the earlier tradition established, for instance, in the Āvaśyakaniryukti, the Sthānānga- and the Samavāyānga-sūtra, etc., combining elements from different origins but also handing down or introducing concepts not traced earlier. Thus the Abhidhānacintāmaņi is often referred to as the key Svetambara source for the 24 Jinas' emblems (lāñchana). Key-figures of
5.
See already Colebrooke "Observations...", pp. 305ff.