________________
XLVIII
PRAVACANASĪRA
more impressive. Here and there, when the text is read without using the commentaries, one feels that groups of traditional verses are intruding on the context indicating perhaps that many traditional verses were included, when this text came to be so shaped by Kundakunda.
The author's reference to Do-kiriyāyāda in 85-6 is interesting, though it' is not discussed in detail. The tenet that the soul can be the agent of its psychic states and also of karmic modifications, is not accepted by Jaina: philosophers. In the S'vetāmbara canon, too, the Do-kiriyāvāda, in its various aspects, has been criticised; according to the S'vetāmbara tradition the , promulgator of this creed was Arya Garga who flourished 228 years after Mahāvīra.
The next interesting reference is to the Sámkhya doctrine in gāthās 117, 122 and 340, by name. The position of Purusa and his relation with Prakrti are some of the weak stones in the structure of Sāņkhya ontology: Purusa' being ever free can never be bound; it is the Prakyti that is bound and liberated. The question can be raised, if there is no bondage why talk of liberation; and if there is no real connection between Purusa and Prakrti, how the false conception of such connection can rise ? It is these points, such as
Prakrti does everything and Purusa is neutral without doing anytlıing, that : are attacked. The Jaina position is that the soul or spirit is the agent of
various blāvas or psychic states whereby there is the influx of karman leading to further bondage; when the karmas are destroyed, with their causes rooted out and the existing stock evaporated, the soul attains its natural purity constituted of eternal bliss and omniscience.
. The text of Samayasārta has 415 verses according to Amrtacandra's recension and 439 verses according to that of Jayasena; it is not only the question of additional gāthās, but sometimes Jayasena preserves important and independent variants.; the majority are gāthās there being only 4 anuştubli verses in the oth section. Amịtacandra divides the whole text into 9 Arkas with a pūrva-ranga at the beginning and a paris'ista at the end; this division, i though not sanctioned by the author, is helpful to grasp the contents of this, the biggest work of Kundakunda.
THE DESIGNATION NĀTAKA DISCUSSED.Though it has been usual to call Pañcāstilcāya, Pravacanasāra and Samayasāra as Nātaka-trayī, it is, in - fact, Samnyasāra alone, whose contents refer to the drama of samsāra in which
Jīva and Ajīva, are the dramatis personæ playing the role of asrava etc., that is fit to be called a nātaka. It is from this that all the three works which constituted the Prābhita-trays came to be called nātakas. Amrtacandra appears to be the first to give this designation to Samayasāra, and he wanted to make it more appropriate by various indications scattered all over his commentary: the introductory section is called Purya-raóga; the work is
1 See Bhagarati-sūtra I, ix, sūtra 75 ; I, J, sūtra 18; II, v, sūtra 100 otc.; also Visesa.
vas'yalabhāsya 2424 ff. 2 It is interestiug to note that Amrtacandra, with Samayasura ngainst his namo, finds &
place, as a play-wright, in M. Schuyler's Biliography of the Sankrit Drama, p. 24.
