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XXVII
PRAVACANASĀRA.
Bhakti is important from the points of Jaina traditional mythology and geo
graphy. In the prose passage we are informed that Mahāvīra Vardhamāna > attained Nirvāṇa, at Pāvā, early in the morning, on Svāti-naksatra, at the end
of the night of the 14th day of the black half of the month of Kārtika, when there were still four years minus eight and half months (?) remaining of the fourth era. This passage is so similar in style that it can be put without any violation in the S'vetāmbara Jaina canon in a particular context. .
PAMOAPARAMÈTTHI-BH ATTI: It contains 7 verses, the first six are in Srgviņī metre treated as a Mātrā-vitta, and the last is a gāthā. There is a prose passage at the end. Here we get the eminent characteristics of five dignitaries, and the aspirant hopes for eternal happiness.
CRITICAL REMARKS ON TEN-BHAKTIS.---Thus we have eight Prakrit Bhaktis. In the case of Nandis'vara-Bhalcti and S'ānti-Bhakti, we have only the concluding Prakrit passages without the Prakrit metrical Bhaktis; and there might be, I think, metrical Namdis'ara, and Samti-bhattis : that gives us the required number of ten. The general outline of contents indicates that these Bhaktis are something like devotional prayers with a strong and religious back-ground. Unfortunately there is no critical edition, nay even a correct and readable edition, of the Bhaktis. They are of utmost importance for the study of Jaina tradition; the Prakrit dialect and the contents also cannot be neglected. A critical student will immediately detect two strata in Prakrit Bhaktis: the first stratum consisting of concluding prose passages and the next of metrical Bhaktis. Both the strata cannot be from the same author and of the same age. What is substantially found in prose portions is amplified in details in metrical Bhaktis. The prose portions, when i carefully read, remind us of closely similar passages in S'vetāmbara canonical texts, in their Prutilcramana and Avas'yaka Sūtras and texts like Pamcasutta. So here is a tract of literature which antedates the division of Jaina church, and it has been inherited, with modifications here and there, indepedently by Digambaras as well as S'vetāmbaras. It is no use discussing the authorship of these prose passages; they form the traditional heritage of Jaina monks; and their age is as old as Jainism itself. As to metrical Bhaktis, Titthayarabhatti is common to both the sects, and that also must have been traditionally inherited. The remaining Bhaktis, too, might have been composed mainly based on traditional knowledge; and as a matter of fact, they have an appea rance of antiquity. It is just imaginable that Kundakunda might have composed, or rather compiled, the metrical. Bhaktis to explain and amplify the -prose Bhaktis, which, too, as traditional relics, he retained at the end. In the
1 The passage runs thus: imammi avasappinie caülthasamayassa pacchime bhūc uuttha
(addhattha ?) māsahine rāsacarllammi sesalalammi Pāvāe nayarie Küttiyamásassa kinha. caudasic rattie Sadie naklhatte paccūse bhayarado Mahadi Mahārino Vaddhamūno siddhim gado /; that means the fifth era begon 3 years and 3 months and a half-after the nirvana
of Mahăvira. Or äuttha might be taken as three and half as in Marathi % Ed. with English Introduction, Critical Notes containing extracts from Haribhadra's
Commentary and English Translation by A. N. Upadhye, Kolhapur, 1934.
