Studies in Jainology Prakrit Literature and Languages

Author(s): B K Khadabadi
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

Page 64

Studies in Jainology, Prakrit
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pandita-maranna) is cremated as a rule and is equally said of the Titthagaras."7
It is Pt.Premi who suggested that this mode of disposal of the cropse of the Kṣapaka, which mostly resembles the one that is prevalent amongst the Parsis in India, appeas to be one of the characteristic features of the early Yapaniya sect to which Śivakotyācārya or Sivärya belonged; and this author has left behind in his Mūlāradhana this queer feature of the early Yāpaniya sect, which, in later days, seems to have been given up by its later followers. Taking into consideration the date of the Mulāradhana (early centuries of the Christian cra), there is hardly any chance of the Parsis influencing the carly Yapaniyas in this regard. Beacause the Parsis, the followers of Zaratrushttra, camc to India some 300 years before the Norman conquest of England i.c., in c.750 A.D.9
Now one may ask with what ascetic ideal the early Yapaniyas could have adopted this mode of disposal of the corpse of the Knapaka? Possibly because it is the simplest mode and also causing very little himsa to the subtle beings. Moreover the nisihiya could serve as a mini tirtha to the other monks who are expected to visit and clean such nisihiya at the beinning of every season (ṛtu) or caturmasa. This is one of the religious ordinances (thikappa) prescribed in the Mūlārādhanā itself: gaha No.1967.10
Now the question arises when and why this mode of disposal of the corpse of the Ksapaka was given up by the later Yapaniyas? This is difficult to answer, for the specific works of the Yapaniyas have fallen into oblivion and also the Yapaniyas themselves, who were classed as an indepenent sect as early as the 5th or 6th Cent.A.D., were absorbed by the Digambaras in South India, more particularly in Karnatak, by the 10th Cent. A.D. Moreover this type of Vijahana has not been described or mentioned in any other work by a Yapaniya teacher, or otherwise, in any other language including Kannada, which preserves several early insciptional references to the Yapaniya teachers. Even Aparajitasūri