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164
SACRED LITERATURE OF THE JAINS
The testimony is not so favourable in the case of chedasūtra 2. It must be ascribed to a somewhat later date from the fact that it contains a polemic against the ninhaga, a mention of the dasapuvvin etc. See below. We have exact chronological data for the Kalpasūtram, inserted in chedas. 4. See p. 472.
It is remarkable that there are old commentaries called bhäsya and cūrni,617 composed in Prakrit, the first kind of texts written in gathas, the second in prose, on three of our texts :- nisiha, vavahāra, kappa. The Nom, Sgl. M. of the 1. Decl. ends invariably in o and not in e; and extensive use is made of the insertion of an inorganic m. The Pra. krit shows many traces of a later age, e. g., we find the thematic instead of the declined form. Furthermore, the fact that these bhāsyas [452] are, for the most part, composed in gathas, whereas the verses in the chedasūtras are mostly slokas, deserves our attention. . .'
The extent of each of the texts is as follows: 1, nistham 812 (or 815) graṁthas,-2. mahānisihar 4504 gr., -3, vavahāra, 500 gr., - 4. daśāśrutaskamdham 800 gr., exclusive of the Kalpasūtra, that contains 1254 gr., -5. brhatkalpa 475 gr - 6. parncakalpa (is wanting).
XXXV. First Chedasūtram the Nisihajjhayaņam. This name is explained, strangely enough, by nisstha, though the character of the contents would lead us to expect nişedha. In the scholiast on Uttarajjh. 26,2 nisihiya is paraphrased by naisedhiki ; and so in the scholiast on Dasavealia 5,2,2 : asamamjasanisedhān naisedhikt ; in the scholiast on Āvasy. 7,1, and on Anuyogady, introduction (2 in A) where Hemacan. dra explains it by savaparisthāpanabhūmiḥ. The statements in the text in Āvašy. 7,33, fg. are decisive :- jamha tattha nisiddho tena nisthia hoi 1/ 33 / .jo hoi nisiddhappa | nisihiā tassa bhāvao hoi | avisuddhassa nisihia kevalamittam havai saddo || 135 || : in 10,40,41 we read baddham abaddhar tu suar, baddham tu duvālasarganiddittham / tavvivariam abaddhar, nisiham anisiha baddhar tu || 40 || bhūe pariņayavigae saddakaranam taheva anistham / pacchannaṁ tu nisiham nisiha nămaṁ jahajjhayanam ||41|| Scholiast here : 818 iha baddhaśrutam nisidham anisidhar anisedham ca, tatra rahasya [453] pāțhäd rahasyopadeśac ca pracchannañ nisidham ucyate prakā sapäthat prakāsopadeśác ca 'nisidha,... nisidham guptārtham ucyate. From this we may indubitably819 conclude that the explanation by
817 See Jacobi Kalpas. pp. 16, 25. 818 padyag adyabandhangd baddhan, sästropadeśavad: dvad. ācār ådiganipigakam ..
Pakostaram ; abaddhas laukikara 819 In the enumeration of the 10 samdyart (angas 3,10; 5,7. uttar ajjh. 26, Avasy 7) the
vassawa, commandments, are always found together with the nisthiya. prohibitions (Leumann).
