Shravakachar of Vasunandini

Author(s): Signe Kirde
Publisher: Signe Kirde

Page 33

4.1 Elements of Style
4 STYLE OF ŚR (57-205)
the narrative literature, prose tales that are collected in the kośas.78 The section with religious poems Sr (57ff.) seems to belong to a repertory of verses that were learned by heart by laypeople and mendicants. The poems were arranged into a efficient system of topics as means of contemplation. Some of those verses might have been originally composed in Slokas, and were later adapted to match with the Aryā. The verses Sr (190ff.) which are related in contents and style to Māc and Mül are found in "Pratyakhyānasamstara" or in the Anupreksā-section of the above-mentioned works. Alsdorf (1966:176) observes that the formulas used for meditation are called Bhāvanās by the Svets. They "[...] do not belong to the oldest layers of Jain doctrine; they make an impression of being younger inventions, with a popular tinge, perhaps even slightly beside or outside the official' dogmatic system". 79
4.1 Elements of Style 4.1.1 Vasunandin's Prākrt Vasunandin composes his manual in the literary Prakrt of the Jains, which is one of the Middle Indo-Aryan dialects.80 As the name implies, Sauraseni refers to the ordinary language of the region Sūrasena (with the former capital Mathurā). The Jain-Sauraseni is generally considered to stand closer to classical Skt. in terms of the assimilations of vowels, consonants and consonant clusters, and the grammar and syntax, if compared with Māgadhi. There are some peculiarities in the Pkt. of the manuscripts of Vasunandin's Sr, which these share with other Dig. scriptures written in the same Jain Devanāgari ligatures.81 There are for example peculiar spellings of consonants, mixed consonants, and vowel clusters. Those Dig. scriptures cannot
78 See also the stories in the commentary of Prabhācandra on Rk in the English translation of Bollée 2010a.
79For the Āvasyaka-type of literature and the analysis of topics and style see for instance Leumann 1934:16ff.
80 The literary Pkt. of the Digs. has often been called Jain Sauraseni. For the languages of the Digs. we find the denotations Jain or Dig. Pkt., Dig. Ardha-māgadhi, Daigambari, Jain Sauraseni. For designations and characteristics of the languages see the introductory chapter in Denecke 1922:2ff.; Schubring 1935:16; Pischel 1957 (1965):21ff.; Von Hinüber 1986:43; Caillat 1979; Van den Bossche 1999:14. I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Felix Erb, Hamburg, for putting at my disposal a copy of Denecke's dissertation.
81 For the transliteration of the Pkt. text of the section Śr (57-205) in Roman script see Appendix 1. Some popular verses of the Sr have been reprinted in a compilation called Tacca-viyāra of Vasunandin. Verses from other works, KA and Bhāva-samgraha, have been quoted in some manuscripts of Sr. In the copies of the manuscripts of Sr which are today in the collections of the Jain libraries and temples in the former Central Provinces in Karanja / Berar in the Akola district (cf. Hirālāl 1926) and in L (collected by Leumann) topical headings in Skt. have been written between the Pkt. lines. It is probable that those glosses are phrases taken from Amitagati's and Gunabhadra's Srāvakácāras and Ašādhara's Sâgāra-dharmâmsta.