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The Concept of Śāstra-Dāna: Socio-Cultural Dimensions
123 comprehensive socio-cultural history of Dānacintāmaņi Attimabbe's unparalleled donative activities which are corroborated by contemporary epigraphs.
Protecting the scripture was legacy for generations to come. Enhancing the traditional knowledge is acclaimed as an act of paragon virtue. It is said-jñānaṁ trailokya durlabhamknowledge is a rare thing in all the three worlds. Thus, in a bid to salvage the near extinct glosses of erudite saint-scholars, the three noble souls-two upasakis and an upāsaka, embarked upon restoring it for posterity by their meritorious act of śāstra-dāna. They felicitously transmitted a prestigious culture embodied in Jainism which enhanced its social status and popularity in the Deccan. Without the practice of śāstra-dāna customs, Jainism would have suffered an irrepairable loss of very valuable corpus of canonical literature. Besides, since it acted as a catalyst agent, Kannada literature in particular witnessed palmy days.
The massive canonical text, Şat-khanda-āgama, 'the Scripture of Six parts', by the celebrated Bhūtabali and Puşpadanta Ācāryas, is an ancient and sacred work. The significance of this work in the socio-religious history of Digambara sect needs no exaggeration. In brief, it is considered as the Sruta-devatā, 'the Canon-God'. Emanating as marvels of human authorship, the Dhavalā, 'the Luminous', and the Jaya Dhavalā, 'the Victoriously Luminous', the two noted commentaries on the above Şat-Khandāgama, are indeed spiritual revelations.
The illustrious erudite scholar-saint Vīrasenācārya (CE 725-820), of Pancastūpa-anvaya olim Sena Samgha, a cohort of Mūlasamgha, 'Root Assembly' or the original congregation of Digambara lineage, and royal teacher of Govinda III alias Jagattunga (793-814), emperor of the Rāstrakūta dynasty, wrote the Dhavalā commentary consisting 72,000 verses, single handed, in CE 816. He started the second commentary, the Jaya Dhavalā, the Victoriously Luminous', but could compose only 20,000 Slokas. His pupil, Jinasenācārya, continued and completed the work by composing the remaining 40,000 granthāgras. The style of these two extraordinary glosses is termed as the maņi-pravāla śaili, 'the crystal and coral style', to denote a happy blending of the words of alien and indigenous languages.
Once it so happened that the copies of the above commentaries, the Dhavalā and Jaya Dhavalā, had become rare and only a single copy was preserved in the Siddhānta Basadi at Śravaņabeļagoļa. Under such pathetic condition, two pious laywomen and spontaneously shouldered the praiseworthy responsibility of getting the above voluminous work recopied, as an act of śāstra-dāna. The interesting episode of the work so felicitously accomplished needs an in extenso description.
Jannapayya alias Jinna of Kupaņa, the well-known Adi-tīrtha, ancient Jaina seat, was a devout votary and a bee at the lotus feet of Jina. The virtuous Jinna was singular for copying Manuscripts and had earned fame for his beautiful hand-writing. His lettering looked as though the best of pearls were arranged in a string to make a garland to bedeck the neck of
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