________________
166
Studies iu Jainology, Prakrit
Tīkās, that served the purpose of scholars indulging in deeper and extensive studies in the field of Jainology, both in India and in the Western countries, and in Japan. The state of knowledge of the other three classes was so poor that even scholar like Jacobi at times confounded Bhāsya and Cūrni', and Jarl Charpentecr rather conjectured the Cūrni as mctrical besides suspecting (through grammatical lapses) the metrical currectness of the Niryukti and the Bhasya.' Thc Niryukti, the first type of cxegetical literature, being long ago ignored by the later Sanskrit commentators (the Tīkākāras) by dropping them from their works, likewise had received scant allention in our days. It was Leumann who inaugurated a systematized study of the Niryuktis some 90 years ago, concentraling as he then did on one of them, namely the Āvassaya-nijjutti (Avasyaka-niryukti), extended its study over subsequent layers and allied groups, and finally called the outcome of his long, hard and sustained studies, the "Avassaya Litcrature”. Since then the importance and magnitude of, as well as the hurdles in, the study of the Jaina cxegetical literature conspicuously have come to light. Bui, unfortunately, as remarked by Walthar Schubring and noted by Ludwig Alsdorf. “Leumann has never had a successor" - his work has not been resumed and continued, The reasons for such a state of affairs in this important domain of Jaina studies can be noted as follows: the non-coming to light of the entire excgetical material, the existence of the non-critical and unsatisfactory texts of all the four types of commentaries (parts of many of which are cilher mixed or intermingled), their non-availability owing to rarity of manuscripts and several of the published ones going out of print, the limited or difficult accessibility (owing to rarity) to the available ones at many centres and libraries,
Clc.7
Let us, then, have in briei a connected and comparative view of these four classes of the Jaina cxegetical literature as known and today available.
The Niryuklis are a peculiar type of versificd commentaries
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
