Some Jaina Canonical Sutras

Author(s): Bimla Charn Law
Publisher: Royal Asiatic Society

Page 28

('HAPTER IIT
SUTRAKRTĀNGA (SÜYAGADANGA)
The Sūtrakrtūrga is the second anga, and is probably inuch older than the Ultarūdhyayana which resembles the Sūtrakrtārgu with regard to its objects and some of the topics treated. The object of the Sūtrakrtānga is to guard young monks against the heretical opinions and to guide them to obtain the highest good. It may be treated as the most valuable guide for young monks. According to Jacobi it lays some claim to poetical art in the variety of the metres cmployed and in the artificial character of some verses. It may therefore be considered as the composition of one author. Jacobi is right in pointing out that the views of the agnostics (ajñūnurūdins) are not clearly stated in the Jain texts and the explanation of the commentators is vague and misleading. But from Buddhist writings we may get a pretty correct idea of what agnosticism was like It must be admitted that the philosophic ideas current at the time of the Buddha and Mahāvīra are of the greatest importance to the historian of that period. In the opinion of Jacobi, Mahāvīra has established the syūdrādu in opposition to the agnosticism of Sañjaya,
The Sūtrukrtūriga has three commentaries: (i) Sīlārka's Tikū which is the oldest commentary extant, (ii) the composed in 1517 A.D., and (iii) a Gujrati gloss known as Būlärabodha. This text has been published with various commentaries in the Agumasangrahu, Vol. 2, Bombay, 1880. The Ayamodaya Samiti has also published this text with Silanka's commentary (1917). This text has been translated into English by Jacobi in S.B.E., Vol. 15, and some selected sections have been translated into German by SchubringWorte Mahārīras'. Dr. P. L. Vaidya's edition of this text (Shyagadam, Poona, 1928) deserves mention.
As regards Mahāvīra, the founder of Jainism, he is repro nted as the great teacher who possessed infinite knowledge and infinite faith and who put the law in a true light like a lamp)He saw everything. He had no impurity. He was virtuous, of a fixed mind, the highest and the wisest
1 Jaina Sūtru8, (SDE), pt. II, p. xxxviii.
2 Cf. the doctrine of Sanjaya Bolatihiputta in the Sūmunñuphalu suttu of the Digha Nikaya of the Suttupițaka, and its elaboration in the Bralımajāla sutta (Digha, I).