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LIV
PRAVACANASĀRA.
Dasaveyaliyasutta? with the difference that his quotations have a Māhārāstri 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 S'vetämbaras. There is no reason why Amrtacandra 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 gāthās of the third group, namely III, 20 *3-5, 24 *6-16. The contents of these gāthās go against the S'vetāmbaras 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 Amrtacandra was too spiritualistic to enter into sectarian polemics ;3 and possibly he wanted to make his commentary, along with it the sublime utterances of Kundakunda, acceptable to all the sects by eliminating the glaring and acute sectarian attacks.
c) Summary of Pravacanasāra. BOOK I
The author offers salutation to Vardhamāna, to the remaining Tirthakaras, to the liberated souls and the great saints collectively as well as individually,
1 See Devachanda Lalabhai Series vol.47, p. 25; the last line is read thus by Haribhadra :
jamhä so apamatlo sa ya pamāa tli niddittha /. S'ilärika, who quotes these two gāthās in his commentary on Sütrakrtanga (Agamodayagamiti 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 savvabhävena 80 jamhä /. 2 I am driven to this bold surmise especially from the manner in which they are quoted
in Dhavalū-tikā. That there are such verses which have been commonly inherited by S'vetämbaras 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 Māhūrāstri There is no doubt that the present S'vetambara canon has leaned towards Māhārāstrī from Ardhamāgadhi because of the constant handling of Ardhamāgadhi texts in a country where Mahārāştri was popular. A comparison of such common verses between the early Svetambara canon and early Digambara texts would help us to have a glimpse of original Ardhamūgadhi. I am sure the counterparts of these two gūthūs might be traced in the S'vetāmbara canon, especially Painnas and Nijjuttis ; it is a pity that most of them aro not within my reach. The suggestion that he might have been a S'vetām bara does not hold water for various reasons: he accepts the 28 Mūlaguņas which includo nudity ( III, 8); he does not protest against the phrase jaha-Jūc!a-rūva (i. c nudity, seo Uttarü.. 22, 34.) of a monk (III, 4, 6,25 ); and lastly he puts those, i. c., the S'vetāmbaras, who hold that an.omniscient can be Nirgrantha even with clothes and can take food in morsels, under Viparita-mithyātva ( Tattvärthasüra V, 6); the verse in question runs thus :
Sagrantho'pi ca nirgrantho grüsīhüri ca leralt/
rucir crampidhū yalra viparilam hi tat smslam 11 The uso of words like Nava-tattya and Sapta-padārtha and a mention of Vyavahūna sülra (Samayasära pp. 31, 33, 295, 404) şartha, apthama fasts ( Taltcärthastīra VII, 10)
suggest, at the most, that bo as closely acquainted with S'setambara literature, 4 I have completely rewritten my summary which was once published in Jaina Gazette
Vol. XXV, p. 15G etc.
