The Jain 1988 07

Author(s): Natubhai Shah
Publisher: UK Jain Samaj Europe

Page 73

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any collective title. 1. NANDISUTRA In this text
there is a study of cognition and a survey of the other texts of the Svetambara canon, together with other miscellaneous material. 2. ANUYOGAD VARA
('Investigations'). Like the Nandisutra this work contains summaries of the other canonical works and other matters of Jain belief.
Finally, before leaving the Svetambara canonical works, mention may be made of the 14 Purvas. These are now lost, though references in other works give us an idea of the contents which included much early Jain belief on the nature of the universe and of the soul. They are believed to have formed the twelfth Anga (now lost). THE SAMAYASARA
OF KUNDA-KUNDA The author of the SAMAYASARA, attributed to one Kunda-kunda, is an obscure figure. This work is one of a number of texts written in a Prakrit language known as Jain Sauraseni and said to be written by the same author. (The Prakrits were based on the popular speech of their time are contrased with the more formal Sanskrit.) However it is nowadays accepted that they cannot all be by the same writer. Even the date of Kundakunda is a matter for dispute by scholars: there are some biographical details available but they are so late as to be unreliable. Probably he lived and wrote in south India around the first century BC or the first century AD. His works, and perhaps particularly the Samayasara, have been widely read and studied. They have been
translated into several Indian liberation and moksa. languages, and some of them The Samayasara is easy to (including the Samayasara) into read, at least in the English English. They have attracted translation, and the reasons for many traditional commentators its success are clear. It describes of whom one very important was simply and basically the Amrtacandra around 1000 AD, processes by which we are who wrote in Sanskrit. A bound by the effects of our commentary in Kannada (a actions and attitudes, and the major south Indian language) path of understanding and selfwas written by Balacandra about control which can lead us to our the thirteenth century AD. full potentiality, unfettered by
An edition of the Samayasara the things of the world. with English translation and with an English commentary (largely (Reprinted from The Jain, July 1983) based on Amrtacandra) and introduction by the late THE LOST PURVA TEXTS Professor A. Chakravarti, of Madras, was published by The sacred scriptures of the Bharatiya Jnanapith, Delhi Jains are of great antiquity. (second edition 1971).
Inevitably, with writings of great Samaya means "self" and is age there is a lot of dispute used in the same sense as amongst scholars about their "atman" in Hindu philosophy. It age, their authorship and of can be very loosely rendered course their authenticity. With "soul". Professor Chakravarty in books which may have been his lengthy introduction deals originally compiled over two with the concept of the Self in thousand years ago it can be many Western and Indian very difficult to know whether schools of thought.
the text which we have today is After a sentence of homage to a faithful copy of the ancient the Siddhas, the liberated souls, version. Even if we have a very the Samayasara commences by early manuscript, saya pointing the difference between thousand years old, that is still that jiva (or individual soul) many centuries after the which rests on the "three jewels" compilation of the original work. of Right Conduct, Faith and in that time all sorts of changes Knowledge, which pure soul is could have been made, pieces the real Self, in contrast to that added or taken out, mistakes which is contaminated by the made in copying and so on. material of karma. Jains see Indeed these difficulties have karma as a sort of cloud of dust led some Jain scholars to be which clouds over the blissful very cautious about the all-knowing qualities of the pure authenticity of writings which soul). This is the basic message are accepted by others: by and of the Samayasara and in the large the Digambara are not subsequent chapters it is fully happy about the scriptures of developed. The true Self is the Svetambara as they exist pure. However emotional states today. such as attachment to things, Some people are afraid to lead to the bondage of karma, apply scholarly research and The realisation of one's true criticism to their sacred writings: nature leads to repentance and it is quite natural to be upset at renunciation and eventually to the possibility that scholars will
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