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Klaus Bruhn
Jina. Thus the first box should be read: « Rşabha (no. 1) attained nirvāna 50 lakhs of crores of sāgarÔpamas before the nirvāņa of Ajita (no. 2)». A sāgarôpama consists of 10 15 palyộpamas. The palyopama is the lowest figure in the field of speculative figures 42, and here calculation depends to some extent on subtraction (the expression « one palyô pama minus a specified period » cannot be replaced by a non-speculative figure). There are 23 antaras in all so that one of the 24 boxes in fig. 4 had to remain blank. In the last box, the name « Pārsva » should appear in the lower line, and the name « Mahāvīra » should appear in brackets.
§ 13. The Universal History in the Avaśyaka Tradition
The Āvaśyaka tradition consists mainly of the Āvaśyaka Sūtra and its various commentaries. We employ for such sūtra-commentary systems the term « cluster >> 43. The current view concerning the commentaries is as follows. There are different types of commentaries, and all the clusters consist of the same types (although the number of types found in the clusters varies). In other words: Before we study a particular cluster we already know that a commentary of type X has other features than a commentary of type Y (and these features are also known). Transformed into a systematical presentation, the « current view >> would amount to the following (point 1 more general than points 2-3): (1) The commentaries developed on certain lines, i.e. certain types
of commentaries (niryuktis, cūrnis, etc.) were institutionalized. It may be necessary to regard with suspicion certain assertions of ancient critics (e.g. that there were « ten niryuktis », that a certain work is a «niryukti » whereas another similar work is
a « bhāşya »), but on the whole the types were a reality. (2) Works belonging to the same type have a set of features in
common. Thus niryuktis are metrical whereas cūrņis are in prose (and so on). Works belonging to the same type have the same « exegetical position ». The shortest possible definition of this term takes the form of a fourfold question: does the work comment upon another work, and if so, on what type of work? Is the work explained by some other work, and if so by what type of work? An example for (3) would be the assertion that «a cūrņi comments upon a niryukti as well as on a bhäsya ».
42. VON GLASENAPP, Jainismus, p. 155. Fig. 4 should be read along with pp. 270-301 of the Jainismus.
43. In Āy Studies I, § 6, we have used the term « cluster >> for both « vertical >> relationship (sūtra-commentary systems) and « horizontal » relationship (e.g. sūtrasūtra constellations such as Varga Literature).
