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SCRIPTURAL COMMENTARY IN SVETĀMBARA JAINISM
The content of the Jain scriptures is often characterised as being "rahasya", a word which most normally means "secret" but can also correspond to "inner essence". See, for example, Mehta, Jain Sahitya kā Bṛhad Itihas, p. 5, for this latter meaning. In modern North Indian vernaculars, the sense of rahasya can very often also be "mystical". As the contribution by Muni Jambavijaya to the recent volume in honour of Jozef Deleu (see note 34; pp. 1-12), there was published an article compiled on the basis of the English version of the Gujarati general introduction to the first volume of the Jaina Agama Series (Muni Punyavijaya et al. ed., Nandisuttam and Aṇuogaddārāim, Bombay: Śrī Mahāvīra Jaina Vidyalaya, 1968). On p. 18 of the original Gujarati version, there occurs a reference to the "rahasyamayta" (i.e. "secret nature") of one section of the scriptures, the Chedasūtras. This has been rendered in the English version (p. 25) as "mystical nature", to which in the Deleu Volume version has been appended (by the editors?) in square brackets "sic". Few texts less mystical in tone than the Chedasūtras could be imagined and in fact the reference to their "rahsyamay" nature most likely derives from the traditional view that these texts which delineate orthopraxy and law often contain exceptions to general rules about behaviour, interpretation of which had to be handled cautiously and unguided access to which was restricted. See Dundas, The Jains, p. 154. For the structure of the Chedasūtras, see Colette Caillat, "Le genre du sutra chez les jaina", in Nalini Balbir (ed.), Genres Litteraires en Inde, Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 1994, 73-101. pp.
See Śilanka, conclusion to his commentary on book one of the Acārānga Sūtra, Jambavijaya reedition p. 212: kṛtvācārasya mayā ṭīkām yat kim api samcitam punyam/tenapnuyāj jagad idam nirvṛtim atulām sadacaram. See also Mehtă, Jain Sahitya kā Bṛhad Itihas, p. 355 and p. 402, for similar statements by Malayagiri.
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Folkert, Scripture and Community, p. 243, See Mehta, Jain Sahitya kā Bṛhad Itihas, p. 330, for the sutras upon which Haribhadra wrote commentaries. 42 At the end of his commentary on chapter one of the Acārānga Sutra (Jambūvijaya reedition, p. 54), Śilanka contextualises it as relating to real practice by describing the ascetic initiation ritual. The wording suggests that he saw himself as belonging to the Vajra sākhā of the Kotika Gana. According to Mehta, Jain Sahitya kā Bṛhad Itihās, p. 39, Silanka belonged to the Nirvṛtti Kula. At the beginning of his commentary, Śianka describes his indebtedness to an earlier explication (vivarana) of the first chapter by Gandhahastin, for whom see Mehta, Jain Sahitya kā Bṛhad Itihās, p. 351. 43 See Paul Dundas, "The Marginal Monk and the True Tirtha", in Smet and Watanabe (ed.), Jain Studies in Honour of Jozef Deleu, p. 258. In his commentary prasastis, Abhayadeva describes himself as belonging to the Candra Kula, a prestigious lineage apparently dating from early medieval times which later Svetambara sectarian groups attempted to incorporate into their own traditions.
44 For a rough chronology of Abhayadeva's commentaries, see Mehta, Jain Sāhitya kā Bṛhad Itihās, p. 366.
45 See the Sthānanga Sutra with Abhayadeva's commentary, in Sthānanga Sutram and Samaväyänga Sutram, reedited by Muni Jambavijaya, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1985, p. 1.
46 Ibid., p. 352. Abhayadeva suggests that the wise should follow that meaning which is in accord with the general tenor of Jain doctrine and make corrections accordingly.
47 See Paul Dundas, "The Tenth Wonder: Domestication and Reform in Medieval Śvetämbara Jainism", Indologica Taurinensia, 14, 1987-8, 181-94.
Jinapala, Yugapradhānācāryagurvävali, in Kharataragaccha-Brhadgurvävali, ed. Jinavijaya, Simghī Jain Granthamāla Vol. 42, Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1956, pp. 6-9.
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