Shatkhandagama Parishilan

Author(s): Balchandra Shastri
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith

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Dharasenacharya (circa 40—75 A.D.), who practised austerities residing in the Chandra-guha (Moon-cave) of Girinagar (Mt. Urjayant) in Saurashtra, had inherited frangmentary knowledge of the Angas and Purvas, including the full text of the Maha-kamma-payadi-pahuda (Mahakarmaprakriti-prabhrata) contained mainly in the fourth Prabhrata of the fifth Vastu of the Agrayini Purva of the Drishtipravada Anga, supplemented by relevant portions of other Purvas and Angas. He sent word to Arhadbali, the presiding Acharya of the congregation being held at the time at Mabimanagari on the banks of the river Venya, to send to him two capable scholarly saints. Consequently, Pushpadanta and Bhutabali presented themselves to Dharasenacharya who imported to them in full the canonical text mentioned above and bade them to redact it in the form of Sutras. The result was the redacted text of the aforesaid MKP, known as the Shata-khandagama since it was divided into six khandas or parts. The very high place, value and importance of this text in the sacred literature of the Jains cannot be exaggerated, simply because it is directly related to and derived or extracted from the original Jaina canon, the Dvadashanga-shruta, as compiled by Gautama the Ganadhara in the life-time and presence of the Tirthankara Mahavira Himself and incorporated the latter's own teachings.
The main theme of this Agama is, apart from many other connected topics, the very detailed and complete exposition of Mahavira's doctrine of karma, the first three parts dealing mainly with the soul which is the subject and agent of karmic bondage, and the last three with the objective or material karma, its nature, kinds and classes and its operation, interaction or interplay with respect to a particular or individual soul.
About half a dozen commentaries of this text were written by different authors at different times. Of these the latest, most exhaustive and the only available one is the Dhavala, written in mixed Prakrit and Sanskrit, running into 72000 Shloka-size, and completed, in Vikrama Samvat 838 (A.D. 780), at Vatagrama (near Nasik in Maharashtra), during the reign of the Rashtrakuta monarch Dhruva Dharavarsha Nirupama 'Vallabharaya' (779-793 A.D.), by Swami Virasena of the Panchastupa-nikaya, who was one of the most learned saints and greatest authors of Jaina literary history. The only extant manuscripts of this voluminous commentary were on palm-leaves and transcribed in the Kannada script, which were preserved in the Siddhanta Basadi at Moodbidre in South Canara (Karnataka). No light has yet been shed on the number, date, place, donor, scribe, etc., of these Mss. There is reason to believe that there are more than one set complete or incomplete, and that the earliest of them is the one prepared, about 1400 A.D., at the instance of Devamati, a princess probably of the Alupa family of the Tuluva region
General Editora! / 19