Tiloy Pannati Part 1

Author(s): Vrushabhacharya, A N Upadhye, Hiralal Jain
Publisher: Jain Sanskruti Samrakshak Sangh Solapur

Page 8

PREFACE
The Tiloyapanpatti (Sk. Trilokaprajnapti ) of Jadivasaha ( Sk. Yativrsabha) is an ancient Jaina text, in Prakrit, mainly dealing with comography. Incidentally it contains a good deal of varied information about Jaina dogmatics, mythology and chronology. Indian cosmography, to which Jaina cosmography cannot be an excep. tion, is apparently a dry subject full of technical details, some of them not quite congenial with the outlook of modern knowledge, which have no urgent attraction for an Indologist. The number of scholars interested in this subject is very small; and as far as we know, Kirfel's monograph (Die Kosmographie der Inder, Bonn. U. Leipzig 1920, pp. 208-340) is the only authoritative treatise which presents Jaina cosmography in a systematic form. For a full understanding of the history of Jainism and Jaina literature, texts dealing with cosmography are as much important as any others. The Tiloyapannatti (TP), however, is a valuable work for various reasons. It is an ancient work belonging to the first stratum of the pro-canon of the Digambaras; the contents, alternative views and the repeated remarks about the loss of tradition certainly indicate the antiquity of this text; its author Jadivasaha, who is more a compiler of hereditary knowledge and ancient tradition than a composer, is a revered author of antiquity; this work is quoted extensively in the Dhavala etc., and many other later Jaina texts appear to be indebted to it; being an old work it deserves to be critically studied in comparison with other works of the Ardha magadhi canon; and lastly, its varied contents and Prakrit dialect are not without some interest for the student of Indian antiquity, religion and language. A critical study of the various problems connected with this text and its author will be presented in the Introduction to the second part.
It is really unfortunate that an important text like the TP should have still remained in Mss. The various studies about a subject necessarily suffer a sort of deficiency, when the scholars have not got, to start with, at least authentic, if not critical, editions of the basic texts which are the sine qua non of all critical research. As a preliminary experiment only a small portion of this text was edited by me in the volumes of the Jaina Siddhanta Bhaskara, Arrah (and also separately issued ); and now, thanks to the munificence of Br. Jivarajabhai, the editors are able to present the first part of TP, comprising 4 Mahadhikaras, with Hindi paraphrase, as the first volume of the Jivaraja Jaina Granthamala.
The Meg. on which our text is based and those which were casually consult. ed for verifying the readings are fully described in the Hindi Prastavana.
The path of the editors of TP has not been strewn with flowers but is covered with unblanted thorns; and their difficulties have been almost insurmountable