Tattvarthadhigamsutram Part 2

Author(s): Umaswati, Umaswami, Hiralal R Kapadia
Publisher: Jivanchandra Sakarchandra

Page 44

İNTRODUCTION
ly conversant with the Sanskrit language. This gave him a splendid opportunity of studying the important non-Jaina works composed in Sanskrit in the aphoristic style, in case we admit that Maharsis Kanāda and Patañjali were his predecessors or senior contemporaries. Thus our author's keen insight in the āgamika literature, his complete mastery over the Sanskrit language and his perfect familiarity with the style of presenting the different subjects in *sūtras enabled him to introduce a new line in the Jaina literature. So far as the available literature of the Jainas is concerned, he is the first to have presented the fundamental principles of this grand religion in *sūtras in Sanskrit. Later on, several eminent Jaina scholars adopted this style while composing works on different subjects like gram. mar, logic, rhetorics, etc. The Object of Composition
Every Indian writer has more or less the attainment of salvation for his aim and object, in composing a work, even if his work is of a secular
1 As to the date when this language became an object of study for Europeans may be cited the following remark of Prof. Jarl Charpentier made by him in his article "A Treatise on Hindu Cosmography from the 17th century" (Brit. Mus. Ms. Sloane 2748A) and published in "Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies London Institu. tion":
"Antique and mediæval Europe never had as far as we are able to ascertain the slightest acquaintance with the literature and śāstrās of the Hindus; nor do we know of any European from the most remote times up to the sixteenth century who possessed even the scantiest knowledge of either Sanskrit or any other Indian language."
2 Sūtras or “the short and pregnant half-sentences" serve to hold before the reader the lost thread of memory of elaborate disquisitions with which he is already thoroughly acquainted. They aim pre-eminently at brevity and therefore there is no room for repetitions of the same ideas, in a compact system of sūtras. Prof. Theodor Goldstücker has elsewhere suggested that the sūtra style may have arisen from the scarcity of materials for writing.
3 The bhaşyakara who will be hereafter identified with the author himself gives this designation as can be seen from the bhāşya of I. 35, II. 2 etc.
4 Cf. what Dr. A. B. Keith, D. C. L., D. Litt., says in "A History of Sans. krit Literature (p. 497):
"Jaina philosophy, originally written in Prākrit, was driven by the advantage of Sanskrit to make use also of that language, and in that Tattvārthādhigamasutra of Umāsvāti we find in Sūtras and commentary a very careful summary of the system. His example was followed widely; Samantabhadra wrote in the seventh century the At พรพสิที่เสน........