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The Commentator's Ethics: Abhayadeva's Colophon to his Vștti on the Sthānāngasūtra
Dr. Kornelius Kruempelmann
When in 1120 Vīra Samvat (1063 AD) Abhayadevasuri, the famous commentator of the socalled post-canonical period, finished his commentary on the Sthānāngasūtra (Prakrit: Thāņamgasutta), the third anga-text of the Svetāmbara-siddhānta, he added to his masterpiece a most interesting colophon, in which he, among other things, mentions his assistant, the monk Yaśodevagani, a group of scholarly monks under the chairmanship of Śrī Droņācārya who did the proof-reading, and the reasons for the difficulties he met with while carrying out his ambitious task. From the colophon, we learn some detail about his working progress and his attitude towards his work.
In the following, I will give a translation of the colophon, together with original text in Sanskrit. Then I will reconsider some aspects of its content. My treatise is based on Abhayadevasuri's commentary edited by Muni Jambūvijaya (2002-2003). The colophon can be found in volume three, pg. 905, line 20 - pg. 907, line 6. To help the reader to see the underlying structure of the colophon as well as to make it easier for him to compare the Sanskrit and the English versions I have divided the short text into four sections: introduction (prose), mangala (prose), address to the reader (prose), concluding remarks (eight verses).
I. Introduction tathā ca yad ādāv abhihitam Sthānāngasya mahānidhānasyevonmudraņam ivānuyogah prárabhyata iti tac Candrakulīna - pravacana - pranītāpratibaddha - vihāra - hāricarita - Sri - Vardhamānābhidhāna - munipati - pādopasevinaḥ pramāņādi – vyutpädana - pravaņa - prakaraņa - prabandha - praņāyinah prabuddha - pratibandha - pravakts - pravīņāpratihata -pravacanärtha - pradhāna - vāk - prasarasya suvihita - munijana - mukhyasya SriJineśvarācāryasya tad - anujasya ca vyākaraṇādi - śāstra - kartuḥ Śrī - Buddhisāgarācāryasya caraṇakamala - cañcarīka - kalpena Śrīmad – Abhayadevasūri - nāmnā mayā Mahāvīra - jinarāja - Santāna - vartinā mahārāja – vamsa - janmaneva samvigna - munivarga - Śrīmad
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