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Introduction
uccallyamhi pãe iriya-samidassa niggamathae/
ābādhejja kulingan marejja tam jogam āsējja || 1 || na hi tassa tamnimitto bandho suhumo ya desido samaye muccha pariggaho cciya ajjhappa-pamanado dittho|| 2 || Pujyapada quotes them in his Sarvärthasiddhi (VII, 13) along with the previous gatha, namely, III, 17 of Pravacanasära; Akalanka too quotes them in his Rajavārtika1; and they are quoted in Dhavala commentary in the midst of some two dozen gathas only a few of which are traced in Pravacanasära. Haribhadra also quotes them in his commentary on [p. 54:] Dasaveyaliyasutta with the difference that his quotations have a Mähäräṣṭri look, and that the last line is different. These verses have a traditional appearance, and they might be traced to a tract of literature which was once the common property of Digambaras and Svetambaras. There is no reason why Amṛtacandra should have left these verses some of which he has translated in his own compositions and some of which are pretty old and authoritative to both the sects; and it is not right to attribute motives to him, when the evidences are so meagre with us.
Then there remain some of the gathãs of the third group, namely III, 20 3-5, 246-16. The contents of these gathãs go against the Svetāmbaras who sanction a begging-bowl etc. for a monk and who accept that a woman can attain liberation in the same birth. My tentative conjecture is that Amṛtacandra was too spiritualistic to enter into sectarian polemics; and possibly he wanted to make
1 Tattvärtha-Rajavārtikam, Benares, p. 275.
2 Sholapur MS. p. 18ff.
3 See Devachanda Lalabhai Series vol. 47, p. 25; the last line is read thus by Haribhadra: jamha so apamatto sa ya pamaa tti niddiṭṭha). Silanka, who quotes these two gathās in his commentary on Sutrakṛtänga (Agamodayasamiti Ed. p. 39), has a few different readings in the first lines, and he quotes the last line in an altogether different form: anavajjo u payogena savvabhāveņa so jamhā.
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4 I am driven to this bold surmise especially from the manner in which they are quoted in Dhavala-tikā. That there are such verses which have been commonly inherited by Svetāmbaras and Digambaras is quite clear from my remarks on Ten-Bhaktis etc. These two gāthās as found in Digambara texts are in the same form so far as their dialectal appearance is concerned; while as quoted by Haribhadra they show an inclination towards Maharāṣṭrī. There is no doubt that the present Svetambara canon has leaned towards Mähärăştri from Ardhamāgadhi because of the constant handling of Ardhamagadhi texts in a country where Māhārāṣṭri was popular. A comparsion of such common verses between the early Svetambara canon and early Digambara texts would help us to have a glimpse of original Ardhamagadhi. I am sure the counterparts of these two gāthās might be traced in the Svetambara canon, especially Painnas and Nijjuttis; it is pity that most of them are not within my reach.
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5 The suggestion that he might have been a Svetämbara does not hold water for various reasons; he accepts the 28 Mulagunas which include nudity (III, 8); he does not protest against the phrase jaha-jäda-rūva (i. e. nudity, see Uttara., 22, 34) of a monk (III, 4, 6, 25); and lastly he puts those, i.e., the Svetämbaras, who hold that an omniscient can be Nirgrantha even with clothes and can take food in morsels, under Viparita-mithyātva (Tattvārthasära V, 6); the verse in question runs thus:
sagranthopi ca nirgrantho gräsähäri ca kevali | rucir evamvidha yatra viparitam hi tat smrtam ||
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