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SCRIPTURAL COMMENTARY IN SVETĀMBARA JAINISM
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19 The central Digambara Jain scriptures, the Şarkhandagama and the Kaşāyapāhuda are comprised of root-text and commentary. See Dundas, The Jains, pp. 55-57. In the Pali canon of Theravada Buddhism, the Niddesa, an old commentary on part of the Suttanipäta, seems to have been deemed canonical as a result of its antiquity. Certain explanatory texts in Mahayana Buddhism have had canonical status popularly attributed to them. See José Ignacio Cabezón, Buddhism and Language: A Study of Indo-Tibetan Scholasticism, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994, p. 95. • See Dundas, The Jains, p. 53. 21 Dalsukh Malvaniya, Hindi introduction to Nisītha-Sūtra, ed. Amar Chand and Kanhaiya Lal, Delhi/Varanasi: Bharatiya Vidya Prakashan, 1982, p. 51. 22 Walther Schubring and Jozef Deleu, Studien zum Mahānisīha: Kapitel 1-5, Hamburg: de Gruyter, 1963, p. 25. 23 See Bhadrankaravijaya, Pratimā Pūjan, Madras: Svadhyāya Sangh, 1991, pp. 152-3 for a modern statement of this. According to Dharmasagara, Sūtravyākhyānavidhisataka, ed. Muni Labhasagara, Agamoddharaka Granthamala Vol. 17, Kapadvamj, v.s. 2018, verse 77, "the Prakrit commentaries enunciated by the Jinas which have now disappeared in fact became) the canonical satras of extended meaning. Otherwise there would have been disappearance of the meaning of the sotras as a whole" (nijjuttibhāsacunni jinimdabhania ya jāu vucchinnältä vittharatthasutta annaha suttatthavuccheo). This statement is based on Dharmasagara's broad standpoint, to be discussed below, that the scriptural commentaries constitute the meaning of the sutras which are themselves only words. 24 See George D. Bond, "Theravada Buddhism and the Aims of Buddhist Studies", in A. K. Narain (ed.), Studies in History of Buddhism, Delhi: B. R. Pub. Corp., 1980, pp. 59-60 and the same author's "The Word of the Buddha": the Tipitaka and its Interpretation in Theravada Buddhism, Colombo: Gunasena, 1982, pp. 101–2. According to the Atthasālini of Buddhaghosa, Mahakassapa, one of the Buddha's greatest disciples, provided an extemporaneous commentary on the Abhidhamma section of the Tipitaka which formed the basis for later, orthodox Mahāvihara understanding. See Ronald M. Davidson, "An Introduction to the Standards of Scriptural Authenticity in Indian Buddhism", in Robert E. Buswell, Jr. (ed.), Chinese Buddhist Apocrypha, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1990, p. 304. 25 Ācārānga Sūtra 1.5.6: (... je maham abahimane, pavāena pavāyam jānijā, sahasammaiyāe paravāgaranenam annesim vā amtie succā). I give the text of the reprint of the Agamodaya Samiti edition (which includes Silanka's commentary), Acārārgasūtram and Sūtrakrtāngasūtram, reedited by Muni Jambuvijaya, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1978, p. 152. Hermann Jacobi, Jaina Sūtras, Part One, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1884, p. 50, translates "paravā garanenam" as "through the instruction of the highest", thus following śīlanka who glosses "parah tirthakrt tasya tena vā vyākaranam yathāvasthitārthaprajñāpanam agamah paravyäkaranam tena vā jānīyār". 26 See Nathmal Tatia, Studies in Jaina Philosophy, Varanasi: P. V. Research Institute, 1951, p. 54, Tatia points out that scripture was regarded as the virtual equivalent of the continuing physical presence of the liberating tīrthankaras. 27 See Tatia, Studies in Jaina Philosophy, p. 48. Cf. Folkert, Scripture and Community, p. 47, for sūyanāna (the Prakrit equivalent of śrutajñāna) coming to have the sense of "transmitted knowledge." 28 See Nathmal Tatia, introduction to Taiken Hanaki (trans.) Anuogaddārāim, Vaishali: Bihar Research Institute of Prakrit, Jainology and Ahimsa, 1970, p. vi. Note that the source of the tīrthankaras' knowledge is not śrutajñana but omniscience (kevalajñāna) which, unlike srutajñāna, is free of the occluding influence (āvarana) of any type of karma.
