Universal Values of Prakrit Texts

Author(s): Prem Suman Jain
Publisher: Bahubali Prakrit Vidyapeeth and Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan

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but also on its brilliant and talented scholars like Rajashekar who composed his Karpūramanjari which won international fame and brought laurels to the Indian genius unparalleled in the history literature. Words with Mathematical Meanings :
In the above quoted Prakrit texts we shall find certain words and analyse them in view of the revolution that took place in India round about the fifth century B.C. For example we find that the word 'artha' has been used to denote the measure of an object with respect to the fluent content (Dravya Pramāņa), time instants (Kāla Samayas), point contents (Kșetra Pramana), and phases contents (bhāva Pramana). Hence it needed a symbol for its representation called the samdrsti. The symbols were of three types : numerical, algebraic and geometrical. The artha could thus be either a constant or a variable. This gave opportunity to the Jainas to develop their logic based on the dynamic concepts, object and hypotheses. In Prakrit we call the symbol as sanditthi Samdrsti may mean something beautiful to look at. Later in the Mahapurana we find Jinasena (c. 9th century A.D.) personifying the Brahmi and Sundari as the language and mathematics scripts, as the two learning taught by Tirthankara Adinatha to his two daughters having the same name. It may be noted that in their equations of the Karma theory, some samdrstis carried medials as strokes in different directions with or without point (bindu). The gives us a new direction about the origination of the Brāhmi script and the mathematical Sundari.
There is one more direction of research shown by the legend about the composition of the Satkhandagama, in which again there is personification of two learning: the Hiñakșari and Ghanākṣari, described as two goddesses achieved by the authors, Puspadanta, Būtabali, preceptors at the instance of Dharasena preceptor. When we find the words, 'Saṁkhejja', 'Asanjejja' and 'Ananta' of different categories constructed through various mathematical means, it appears to be a new concept transcended in philosophy of religions which was needed in their Karma theory.
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