Outline of Avasyaka Literature

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

Page 97

English translation by George Baumann
Early history and lacunae in the following outline
[IV] As early as 1882 in Berlin during my occupation with the Jaina manuscripts in the Royal Library (Königliche Bibliothek), I had noticed that the Avaśyaka-niryukti (of the Svetâmbara literature) deserved special attention. The excerpts, prepared at that time (L 40) from the text and from Haribhadra's commentary, contain, among other things, narrations of the schisms, which I had translated at the end of 1883 (in Oxford) for Indische Studien (XVII 91-135). Before the printing of this work (cp. the epilogue in it on p. 130) Weber's notes on the Āvaśyaka-niryukti in the Indische) Stud(ien) (XVII 50-76) confronted me with something new; also Weber's Avaśyaka excerpts in the Catalogue (II 739-806), later, supplemented my own review (cp. p.777 & 7784). After I had assisted in the revision of Sir Monier Williams' Sanskrit-English dictionary up to the lemma Dadhyanc, the turn of Jaina studies came (however, with numerous interruptions). Some results of these efforts have appeared in periodicals and other places (in the Abhandlungen der Berliner Akademie as well as in Congress publications and in books by Jacobi and Tawney). The most important advancement in these efforts on the Avaśyaka were: 1889 through the discovery of the concealed Avaśyaka-sūtra in old commentaries. A preliminary outline on the Avaśyaka tradition was presented in the same year at the Congress in Stockholm. In August 1891 through the permission to acquire rare Jaina manuscripts for the Strassburg Library. - Because funds from the Max-Müller-Foundation could soon (since Nov. 1892) be made available, the importance of these new acquisitions increased considerably. In the autumn of 1892 through a longer sojourn in London that confirmed the already correctly conjectured date of Haribhadra, furthermore (with L 98 & 106), provided an insight into the history of the layman's version of the Avaśyaka-sūtra and (with L 110) prepared the ground for a serious study of the BșhaddHarivamsapurāna and with that, in fact, of Digambara literature. 1893 through the final arrival of the Sīlānka manuscript (P. XII 57). 1894 through the discovery that the Strassburg acquisitions contain a Pūjājayamālā (S 32) and two fragments entitled 'Nityaprayogavidhi' (S 330 conclusion & 333), as well as the Nirvāṇa-kānda (S 334%), parts of a Digambara version of the Avaśyaka-sūtra. In due course, this led to the discovery and acquisition of further Āvaśyaka texts of Digambara literature (S 360-363). - At the Geneva Congress (Sept. 1894) specimens of the now traced sūtra in triple form were conveyed in text and translation and the first printed sheets of this present work were submitted. in Dec. 1894 through the arrival of the Bhāşya manuscript P XII 56 that, fortunately, contains the expected original recension of the text. The specimen is simply designated as p when there is a mention of the Bhāsya, on the other hand, the Silānka manuscript as P. 1895 through the observation that even the early Buddhist canon had taken over several Jaina legends, of which one already contains the first Āvaśyaka vow. On April 23, 1896 through the discovery of the Digambara original of the Avaśyaka-niryukti.
The furtherance of collection L and the production of a provisional, but not yet completed, catalogue of collection S - both preliminary works for the present as well as later publications, took up a greater part of the time.
? A résumé of the lecture appeared in Trübner's Report, Third series, I 1 51 f. (in the Congress edition). * Cp. ZDMG VLII 308. 4 Cp. ZDMG XLIII 348 f.
Cp. below, p. 15 Cp. Abhandlungen des Genfer Congresses II 125.
IX