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TULSI-PRAJNA, July-Sept., 1991
Besides architecture, sculpture and town-planning, both the works have common topics such as eroticism (Arga 41, Bșhat 74), list of gods and goddesses, various kinds of omens through birds and beasts. Here we have a store of knowledge of various things and objects concerning cultural life of ancient Indian people.
The Angavijja is an ancient Prakrit Jain text which like the Joisakaranda is a constituent of the Painnā literature, Since it is a compiled work based on the teachings of the early acāryas, it deals with many important subjects, besides the science of prognostication, which are essential to understand life. It contains 60 adhyāyas written in Mahārāstri Prakrit. The various grammatical forms used here are not in consonance with the rules of grammar. The 9th chapter deals with gods and goddesses, including the list of 'foreign goddesses' such as the Apalā (identified with the Greek goddess Pallas Athene), Aņādita identified with the Avestic goddess Anahita), Airāņi (identified with the Roman goddess Irene), Timisrakeśī (identified with the nymph Themis) and the Śālimālini (identified with the moon-goddess Selene). Among other nonJain popular deities we have Siva, Senāpati Kārtikeya, Vaiśravaņa, Varuņa, Skandha, Viśākha, Brahma, Indra, goddess of crematorium (śmaśāna), goddess of excrement (varca), goddess of dung-hill (ukkurudikā) and so on. The 33rd chapter has supplied an important list of boats and ships which indicates the maritime trade carried on by seafaring merchants in those days. The list includes the kottimba (identified with Cotymba), tappaka (identified with trappaga) and sanghāda (identified with sangar ship), mentioned by Periplus in his The Erythrean Sea. The 55th chapter deals with the ways to find out the wealth stored underground. The 58th chapter discusses certain aspects of Jainism, and in the last chapter we are told the ways to have the knowledge of one's previous birth.
1. See Muni Punyavijaya, Preface of Argavijjā. 2. See author's PNL, pp. 123-125. 3. Ibid, pp. 172.
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