Outline of Avasyaka Literature

Author(s): Ernst Leumann, George Baumann
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

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E. Leumann, An outline of the Avasyaka literature
extent the history of any science is dependent on the local distribution of its materials" is in tune with Leumann's foremost concern: the acquisition or availability of manuscripts, as the key for any research. He considers Bühler "an unparalleled collector of Indian manuscripts”, whose contribution went further than Jaina studies, enriching also the field of Indian law and other areas. He concludes: "So, once more, we may state fairly that Bühler would have marked an epoch in Indian Philology, - he would, indeed, have remodelled it by giving it a new and larger base, even if he had done nothing else than securing for scientific investigation the three thousand manuscripts that we owe to him”.
p. I [Io30] "the outline of the Jaina Canon and the second catalogue by Weber" is a reference to two major contributions to Jaina studies by Albrecht Weber (1825-1901). "Über die heiligen Schriften der Jaina" in Indische Studien 16, 1883, pp. 211-479 and 17, 1884, pp. 1-90 is a seminal analysis of the Svetāmbara Siddhānta (English translation: Weber's Sacred Literature of the Jains by H.W. Smyth in Indian Antiquary 17-21, 1888-1892; more recently, in book form, Albrecht Weber's Sacred Literature of the Jains [An account of the Jaina Āgamas). Edited by Ganesh Chandra Lalwani and Prof. Satya Ranjan Banerjee, Jain Bhawan, Calcutta, 1999). The materials on which this investigation is based are the manuscripts kept in the Berlin Royal Library where they had been sent through the good offices of Georg Bühler. The "second catalogue” refers to vol. II.2, 1888 and vol. II.3, 1892 of the Verzeichniss der Sanskrit-/ Sanskrit- und Prākrt-Handschriften der Königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin, which deal with Jaina literature, respectively the Siddhānta (mss. nos. 17731928) and the literature outside the Siddhānta (mss. nos. 1929-2027).
p. I [I 30-31] "the treatises and the publications by Jacobi": this statement has in view particularly the following seminal books by Hermann Jacobi (1850-1937): The Kalpasūtra of Bhadrabāhu, ed. with an introduction, notes and a Prākệt-Samskrt glossary, Leipzig, 1879 (Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, 7,1); The Ayāramga Sutta of the Svetāmbara Jains. Pt. I Text, London, The Pāli Text Society, 1882; Jaina Sūtras. Transl. from Prākıt, Part I: The Ācārānga Sūtra. The Kalpa Sūtra, 1884; Part II: The Uttarādhyayana Sūtra. The Sūtrakstānga Sūtra, 1895 (Sacred Books of the East, vols. 22 and 45).
p. I [1°31-32] "the chronologized collections by Klatt”: Johannes Klatt (1852-1903), who occupied a post in the Indian Department at the Berlin Royal Library, made use of the Jaina manuscripts kept there. His main interests and contributions pertain to the history of the Jains and of the Jaina religious groups (gaccha, pattāvali) on which he published several articles. He worked extremely hard at a very broad dictionary of Jaina history and doctrine, which was not completed because of tragic circumstances. Of the original manuscript which contained 1402 pages (only up to the entry dandaka) a small selection dealing with the entries: Abhayadeva, Umāsvāti, Haribhadra, Jinadatta, Jinaprabha, Jinabhadragani, names starting with Jina, entries from Jinodaya up to jīvavicāra, was published through the good offices of Albrecht Weber, who had great respect for Klatt's work, and of Ernst Leumann, who was his friend: Specimen of a literary-bibliographical Jaina-Onomasticon, Leipzig, 1892, 55 pages. In addition, Leumann completed and prepared for publication one of Klatt's unfinished articles and provided biographical information about him in the style of the pattāvalīs: see J. Klatt, “The Samachari-Satakam of Samayasundara and Pattavalis of the Anchala-Gachcha and other Gachchhas” (revised with additions by Ernst Leumann),
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