Studies in the Bhagavati Sutra

Author(s): J C Sikdar
Publisher: Research Institute of Prakrit Jainology & Ahimsa Mujjaffarpur

Page 326

Sec. II]
STUDIES IN THE BHAGAWATI SUTRA
301
adopted the occupation of charcoal-making and selling it as a means of living at that period.
An account of different kinds of fuels used by the people of the society is found in the following references. They are :grass (tana), wood (kattha), leaf (patta), bark (tayā), chaff of grains (tusa), rubbish or refuse (busa), cowdung (gomaya), sweepings (avakara)”, charcoal (imgāla)”, sacrificial fire-wood (samidha), Saraka and Arani wood
Here a vivid picture of hewing wood by some man with an axe (parasuņā) is presented as revealed in its stray references made in connection with the religious discourse of Lord Mahāvira on the dissociation of Karma-matters of the infernal beings and of the houseless monks thus:
"As some old man having a body worn out owing to old age...... tired strikes a big, dry, twisted ......curved trunk of a Košāmra tree with a blunt (unsharp) axe by making a great sound, while striking it, but he cannot cut it into pieces and big logs, just like that the infernal beings do not become putters of an end to all miseries by dissociating their closely bound sinful Karma-matters".
Side by side, the BhS places the opposite picture thus : “As some young and strong man may cut and split a big, raw, untwisted, rough & straight trunk of a Sāmalī tree with a sharp axe into pieces without making any great sound, just like that the Sramaņa Nirgranthas become the putters of an end to all miseries by dissociating their Karma-matters which fall asunder".
The text describes also the method of kindling fire by rubbing the wood · Araņi' with 'Saraka', the other one. Other Small Cottage Industries :
The references to the mat of split up bamboos (viyalakid dan = vidalakatam), that of fragrant grasses, that of skin or cot interwoven with leather (cammakiddam = carmavyutan khatvādikam) and of blanket (kambalakiddam =ūrņāmayam kambalam)? clearly
1 Bh8, 15, 1, 553. 3 10, 11, 9, 417. • 10, 11, 9, 417.
16, 2, 1, 92; 8, 5, 330. 4,6 16, 16, 4, 573. 7 IO, 13, 9, 498,