Reflections on the Jaina Exgetical Literature

Author(s): B K Khadabadi
Publisher: Z_Aspect_of_Jainology_Part_3_Pundit_Dalsukh_Malvaniya_012017.pdf

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B. K. Khadabadi
maintained with the memorial verses containing catch words; but, as the same time, the Cūrņis indicated their ter: ptation to switch over to Sanskrit by partially ad. mitting Sanskrit into their regular Prakrit medium. The Tikās, then, fully realized this temptation of the Cūrnis, imbibing scholastic techniques of the Brahmanic Nyāya school and displaying them well in their commentarial efforts.
After getting introduced fairly well to these four types of the Jaina exegetical literature, some interesting questions stand before us : Why do we have no Bhâşya for every Niryukti ? Or, why Niryuktis like the Ayāra and the Süyagada remained free from later additions and insertions of explanations ? Why some Cūrnis stand independent of Bhāşya ? Why should a Bhāşya, like that on the Dasave yālija (Daśavaikälika) comprise just 63 verses? We cannot bundle off all these and many such other questions by simply saying that all the exegetical works (in different layers too) have not come down to us. But we have to apply ourselves, first and foremost, to bringing out critical editions of the available exegetical works and to study them intensively, extensively, and comparatively, so that we may be able to answer all such questions and also know many new facts about and facets of the Jaina tradition, history, dogmatics, theology, philosophy, metaphysics and hence the Jaina contribution to Indian thought and literature. This would be possible only when we will have some Leumanns, in India and Japan, and of course in the West, who would produce scholarly studies like 'Ayära Literature', 'Dasaveyaliya literature', 'Nisiha Literature', etcetera.
Notes and References
1. There could have been also produced some such exegetical works in
Apabhramśā, old Hindi and old Rajasthāni. But I have no knowledge
of their existence. 2. Walthar Schubring. The Doctrines of the Jainas, Delhi 1962, p. 83, f. n. 5. 3. Ibid., p. 83, f. n. 3. 4. Ibid., p. 84, f. n. 3.
Vide "Jaina Exegetical Literature and the History of the Jaina canon”, in Mahavira and His Teachings, Bombay 1977. Alsdorf and his team of scholars were said to have been trying to do it in Hamburg. Vide Alsdorf, "Jaina Exegetical.”, p. 8. (i) Last year I intended comparatively to refer in respect of the “Cilātiputra Kathanaka", to all these four types of commentaries on the Avassaya. I had to borrow, with difficulty, the Vises = Avaš yaka-bhasya Volumes from the Rajaram College Library, Kolhapur. And when I sat for my job with all the works, the uncritical and intermingled texts, with neither tables of contents nor indexes of any kind, tired me for days together until I received a reminder from Kolhapur to send back the borrowed Volumes.