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E. Leumann, An outline of the Āvaśyaka Literature
general, such non-canonical textbooks had no durability but were usually replaced by manifold adaptions or by very similar new elaborations. The oldest works thath we can attribute to this monograph-category are the Oghaniryukti and the Pindaniryukti, because the former does not depend, like the normal Niryukti-writings, on a canonical original, and the latter has given up its relationship with any canonical work, if in the beginning there was one at all, already before the separation in the church***. There, two main disciplines of life-activities have been depicted in a recapitulative fashion. More specifically, the almost completely missing karmanwritings of Sivašarman, Garga, as well as the Siddhaprābhsta, represent the type of literature referred to, all of which have been displaced by Devendra's Karmagrantha-pancaka and Siddhapancāśikā. Jinabhadra's lesser writings now also belong to the older monographs, which, presently, have been mostly forgotten: these are a Kșetrasamāsa, a Samgrahaņī, the Višesanavati, the Jītakalpa and the Dhyāna-śataka; both of the last mentioned have the old popular century-form.
The Kşetrasamāsa contains a concise account of the main part of canonical geography. The Samayakşetra or Manusyakşetra (,respectively Naraksetra), i. e., the central area of the earth, has been dealt with, which alone (because outside of it no celestial bodies appear) knows time and is solely inhabited by human beings.
Naturally, Jīvâbhig. IV 8-21 and the corresponding parts of Upanga 5-7 and Anga 5 have been used as sources. Besides, Jinabhadra will have had some post-canonical versifications before him that he surely simply copies just as he takes some stanzas from older texts. In Ind. Stud. XVI 390 f. a synopsis of the Jivabhigama-passage has been given that at the same time can serve as a general orientation about the contents of the Ksetrasamāsa.
Malayagiri's commentary-recension has 655 stanzas, which, apart from a few sloka-s, have been written in gāthā-metre. Affixed is a concluding gāthā. I Jambūdvīpa
398 II Lavaṇasamudra 90 III Dhātakīşandadvīpa IV Kālasamudra
11 V Puşkaravaradvīpa 75 (1 11. 11!. 12 74)
655 +1 Ms. S (371) agrees almost completely with the mentioned recension. It inserts three stanzas in I (101' & 1411.) and leaves out one gāthā (11') in V. Besides that, in V gāthā 21 precedes 20. Gāthā V 74 has an acceptable reading in S
gāhāṇam chac ca sayā panapannā honti ettha satthammi whereas Malayagiri has consistently taken over a variant from an earlier recension
gāhāṇam chac ca sayā sattattīsā ya honti padipuņņā |
Thus, at a particular time, as this reading indicates, the text had had only 637 (instead of 655) gāthā-s. Otherwise, provisionally, it can only be said about earlier recensions that there very likely (furthermore, according to the excerpt from I still to be discussed) the chapters are not as with Malayagiri (and in S), designated as ahigāra, but as uddesa.
Malayagiri ignores textual criticism completely. [55] His commentary – sober and unusually far-reaching and adequate - comprises about 7,000 grantha-s if you deduct the 700 grantha-s of the text. He does not offer a single hint about the occasional lack or rearrangement of certain stanzas, and only very seldom does he note a variant. We are in possession of the commentary (just as earlier for L 121 & 147) of both manuscripts R 101 and P XII 16. Both are excellent, but the latter begins, firstly, with the Meruvaktavyatā (I 303 ff.) and fairly generously contains the second half of the work. Further manuscripts are
*** Cp. above, p. 22°, 11.26-31. 15°67-69. 16's-10- 14-31
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