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Vol XXII, 1998
REVIEW
233
The BRHAT-KALPA-NIRYUKTI of Bhadrabāhu and the BRHAT-KALPABHĀŞYA of Sanghadāsa Gani, edited by Prof. Willem B. Bollée in Romanized and metrically revised version, with notes from related texts and a selective Glossary Published, in three parts, by Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart (West Germany), Part I, pp xxiv + 411, Part II, pp XXXIV + 421, Part III, pp VI + 315 In his Preface, Prof Bollée recalls that when in Bhavnagar in 1972, he was lucky enough to obtain through the publishers, Sri Ātmanand Jain Sabhā, from their special reserve, a copy of the six-volume Brhatkalpasūtra the work being long out of print by then This is, he thinks, probably the most valuable and well-known among the many texts edited by the scholarly sadhus Caturvijaya and Punyavijaya In his very brief Introduction, he has made the following observations (1) The old Kalpa-sūtra as opposed to the Paryusana-Kalpa, which is worshipped and recited on six days at the annual religious festival of the Svetambara Jains in the middle of the four-month monsoon period, belongs to the large body of the Cheda-sütras, the Jain counterpart of the Buddhist Vinaya Also known as Vedakalpa, but better known as Brhat- (sadhu-) kalpa, it is the fifth and main section of the canonical disciplinary literature of the Jaina, the collection of precepts and prohibitions Duly observed they effect the fulfilment of right conduct (kalpa) (2) Th Jains in many respects have stricter rules than eg the Buddhists, the type of literature in question is considerable, but not only canonical, as shown by the Niśītha., Mahānisītha-, Vyavahāra-, Daśaśrutaskandha- and Pamcakalpasūtras, but also exegetical like Niryuktı, (Brhac-)cürni, (Brhad-)bhāsya, Tikā, Vrtty, etc The greater part of both groups still waits to be published and of some texts like Pamcakalpasutra and its Cürni only the name is known (3) In the 1930's, the two learned monks, Caturvijaya and his pupil Punyavijaya produced the six-volume edition of the Brhatkalpasūtra with Bhadrabāhu's Niryuktı (1st cent CE), Samghadāsas Bhāsya (6th cent CE ?) and the Vrtti or Tīkä begun by Malayagını in the 12th cent, and continued from vs 608-3678 by Ksemakirti (4) The niryuktus, as is well-known, may have been composed as memory aids for monastic teachers, and for that very reason they ere metrical Following the expansion of topics to be treated the stanzas from Brhadbhāsya or Mülabhāsya
