Sambodhi 2012 Vol 35

Author(s): J B Shah
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 47

Vol. XXXV, 2012
The Earliest Portions of Daśavaikālika-sūtra
37
besides being in Indravajrā, are seriously complex and in terms of their meaning definitely could not have been meant for a boy-friar. The interpolation, as I hypothesise, may have been prompted with the motive of stressing the impropriety for a recluse to be passionate. These verses, of course and otherwise, look ancient as though belonging to the period not later than c. 2nd-1st century B.C. They, however, are not in the style, nor do they accord with the spirit of Sayyambhava's much simpler literary modulations. The next five verses are in order, but there must have been a few other (and contextual) verses preceding these five which apparently are missing. Since these are also missing in the Uttarādhyayana's “Rathanemīya” chapter (c. 1st cent. B.C. - A.D.) which borrows four of these aforenoted five, the loss seems an ancient one. They were, then, not in front of the author of the “Rathanemiya" chapter incorporated in the Uttarādyayana sūtra at the beginning of the Christian or Common Era.
The rest of the chapters, excepting for the two verses in chapter 4 (3031), are not at all in Sayyambhava's style, motive, or genius of his writing. In point of fact, they are in differing styles, of different periods, not always homogeneous, though a general subject-relevance for incorporating them there may be sensed by the nature of topics they cover and their over all delineation. (And this possibly had led to the supposition that the entire work is from the pen of Sayyambhava!) A few chapters—these are relatively longer-even reveal layers or laminae in the make up of their strata. (These latter could be interpolations done by redactors of differing times.) 3. Kșullikācāra
Verses 1 and 10-15 are reminiscent of the style of the earlier chapters in the Uttarādhyayana and hence may be of the Mauryan period; while vss. 2-9, being more in the enumerative vein of the later āgamas, the samgrahaņis, and the niryuktis, have a look definitely of later times than the forenoted seven verses. 4. Şadjīvanikāya
The chapter consists of at least five major components of differing compositions from the standpoints of style and material. The sūtras 1-9, in prose, recall Sramana Bhagvat Kaśyapa Mahāvīra's exposition of the six classes of souls. Sūtra 10, likewise in prose, is in the style of the Pratikramana-sūtra, one of the six Avašyakas. Next follow 12 verses on Sadjivanikāya (six classes of beings) regarded with uncertainty (or dubiousness as to their originaltiy ?)