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Studies in Jainology, Prakrit
183
24
AVASYAKACŪRNI AND THE
TALE OF CILATĪPUTRA
The Cūrnis in Jaina literature are a kind of commentaries on the Ardhamagadhi canonical works (as well as on the Niryuktis) composed in Prakrit prose mixed with Sanskrit in different degrecs. They have their predessors, the Niryuktis and the Bhasyas, other two types of commcntaries composed in Prakrit verse; and they are also followed by the likās, the far detailed commentaries composed in San:krit prose. Serving the needs of their times for more than a millenium, these four types of commentaries form a vast body of the Jaina cxcgesis, which has held mirror to the history of jainism on one hand and colliributed its own to the marvellous stream of Indian thought and learning. And among these four types of commentaries, the Cūrnis occupy a position of juncture marking a departurc from the archaic Prakrit verse of the Niryuktis and the Bhāsyas and, thus, paving the path for the classical Sanskrit prose of the Tīkās.
Ai, many as twenty Cūrnis are said to have been written on the Āgamas. A few are known by reference alone and all of the others are not available in print. The printed ones, unfortunately, are not critical editions and some of them too are not available now.' Coming back to our Cūrnis in general, in the
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