Prolegomena to Prakritica et Jainica

Author(s): Satyaranjan Banerjee
Publisher: Asiatic Society

Page 82

BANERJEE : JAIN RELIGION IN A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
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life in the world. (Winternitz, History of Indian Literature, Vol. II, p. 593). Though he is not a prolific writer, he seems to be a bulky writer. All his works are full of thoughts and ideas. His Adhyātma-parikşā in Prakrit with a Sanskrit commentary by the author himself, is a treatise on self-realisation. His Jñāna-bindu-prakaraņa (written in 1675 ) and Jñānasāra or Aşțaka-prakaraṇa relate the essence of knowledge for acquiring the right perception of an object. It is also said that he revised the Dharmasaṁgraha written by Mānavijaya in 1681. This is a bulky book which describes the duties of the householder and ascetic. This book is very rich in quotations, and it is seen that nearly 103 works and 26 authors are quoted in this book.
In the history of Jainism certain new ideas (which were once discarded by Mahāvīra) started to appear again. Around the 10th century A.D. differences in certain interpretaions of Jainism came in. For example, Mahāvira did not believe in Caturāśrama, that is, Brahmacarya, Gșhastha, Vānaprastha, and Sannyāsa (Jaina name is bhikṣu), but in the 9-10th centuries A.D., these started coming up again in Jainism. It is believed that Jinasena (9th cent. A.D.), a pupil of Virasena, and the friend of King Amoghavarşa I (815-877 A.D.), and an author of the Adipurāņa, accepted the Caturāśrama system of Hinduism. His follower the famous Digambara Cāmundarāya (10th-11th centuries A.D.) in his work Cāritra-sära has acknowledged this concept of the four āśramas of the Hindus. Except one (i.e. bhikṣu the name of the fourth stage), the names are also the same.
After a few centuries, Āsādhara (1240 A.D.) in his Sāgaradharmāmsta and Medhāvin (1504 A.D.) in his Srāvakācāra had given threefold classification of the Srävaka. These are pakşika, naişthika, and sādhaka. A pākşika-śrävaka is a layman who practises the anuvratas and the mūlagunas. He is called a pāksika layman, because he has an inclination (pakşa) towards ahimsā, while, on