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48
Klaus Bruhn
To the total of 259 verses (0.83% of the work) we have to add the 22 verses of the auto-commentary which deal with the same subject. The building of the samavasarana by the gods is no singular event. The main emphasis is no doubt on the samavasarana built for the first sermon of the Jina, but the 24 biographies are not uniform in this respect. Hemacandra uses three different « formulas »>:
Jina no. 1:
nos. 2-10, 16-23:
nos. 11-15, 24:
description of the first and last samavasaraṇa; description of the first samavasarana;
mentioning (our letter «M») of the first, description of the second samavasaraṇa.
For an evaluation of the figures it is important to know that the Svetāmbara samavasarana is less complex than its Digambara counterpart. We shall, however, not go into any details as we are not concerned with the subject of the samavasarana as such but with repetition. In this connection it must be remembered that the Trisaṣṭiśalākāpurușacaritra is not only a history of the Jinas. The 259 verses form 0.83% of the entire work. But in relation to the Jina material alone the percentage would be higher.
§ 15. Somatilaka's Saptatiŝatasthänaprakaraṇa
In the literature around the UH (as elsewhere) more encyclopaedic and more specialized works exist side by side. A work of the latter. category is Somatilaka's prakarana (A.D. 1330) 51. The term «sthāna >> stands for « slot ». It has, however, no analytical function but is basically used in the same manner as in the Sthānāṁga. As usual, the slots are not uniform in character (see categories A-B-C in § 11 supra). The name of the Jina is not designated as a sthāna. The fixing of the exact number of sthānas is, no doubt, a matter of discretion. Somatilaka obviously chose « 170 » because this was a sacred figure (maximum number of simultaneously existing Jinas) 52. If we want to calculate the total of fillers, we must consider each slot separately.
Somatilaka's work on the slots has also been transformed into graphic tables. One Kalpasūtra edition 53 contains sixteen tables for the 170 sthānas (1-13, 14-25, etc.). Each table covers two pages and considers
51. Sri-Somatilakasuri-viracitam Saptatiśatasthānaprakaraṇam, Vijapur (Gujarat), sam. 1990. I owe my copy of this edition to the kindness of Prof. A. M. Upadhyay, Ahmedabad. There is also an earlier edition (with Devavijaya's commentary): Atmānanda Jaina Sabha, Bhavnagar, sam. 1975. Somatilaka's work has been used by CH. KRAUSE in the Introduction of her book on Ancient Jaina Hymns (Ujjain, 1952). 52. CH. KRAUSE, fn. 51, p. 7.
53. Sri-Kalpasütram (with Vinayavijaya's Subodhikā), Baroda, 1954, pp. 605-36.
