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Rishibhashit : A Study
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was also the earlier teacher of Sariputta and one of the six Teerthankar contemporaries of Buddha, Sanjay Velatthiputta. In Vedic tradition we find the mention of Sanjay, a minister of Dhritarashtra;289 but from periodic and other angles he is a different person than the Sanjay of Rishibhashit.
40. DVAIPAYAN (Devayan) The fortieth chapter of Rishibhashit contains the collection of preachings of Dvaipayan Rishi. Besides Rishibhashit, Dvaipayan (Deevayan) has also been mentioned in Sutrakritang 290, Samvayang, 291 Aupapatik, 292, Antakritadasha 293, Dashvaikalik-churni 294, and Sutrakritangchurni295. He has uniformly been said to be a Rishis from outside the Nirgranth tradition. Sutrakritang has mentioned him with Rishis like Nami, Bahuk, Asit Deval, Narayan Parashar etc, and that he attained omniscience inspite of consuming unboiled water, fruits etc. According to Samvayang he shall be a Teerthankar in next ascending time cycle, In Aupapatik he has been mentioned as the founder of a particular tradition of Brahman Parivrajaks. Antakritadash, Dashvaikalik-churni etc. state that Yadavs disturbed his meditational practices and he decided to destroy them; as a result he was born Agnikumar Dev (a god) and destroyed Dvarka. Efforts have not been made to concieve a composit picture of his personality based on the variety of stories available about him in these canons, but in my opinion all these stories are concerning only one Dvaipayan. The traditional belief that he was a contemporary of Mahavir is incorrect. According to the aforesaid reference he must have been a Pre-upanishadic Rishi of the Mahabharat period.
In the Buddhist tradition there is a mention of two persons having the name Kanha Deepayana.296 The story narrated in the Krishna Dvaipayana (Kanha Deepayana) Jatak about Kanha Deepayana does not have any relations with Dvaipayana (Deevayana) of Rishibhashit and Jain tradition. But in Jataks there is another story of Kanha Deepayana where he has been shown as instrumental to the destruction of Dvarika (Dvaravati) and the clan of Vasudev (Yadav clan). With slight variation, this story is available in all the three Jain, Buddhist, and Vedic traditions.
In the Vedic tradition Krishna Dvaipayana or Dvaipayana has been mentioned in details in Mahabharat.297 In the Vedic tradition his popular name is Vyas or Vedavyas. He is said to be the son of Maharshi Parashar and the author of Mahabharat. He fathered three sons Dhritrashtra, Pandu, and Vidur from Vichitravirya's wives on request of Bhishma.
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