Canonical Literature Of Jainas

SR No.: 022774
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: H R Kapadia
Publisher: Hindi Granth Karyalay
Publication Year: 1941
Total Pages: 286
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 26 MB

Page 135

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THE CANONICAL LITERATURE OF THE JAINAS
[CHAP.
For either word, vaidârika (or rather vaidâlika, cf. karmavidalana) and vaitâliya may, in Gaina Prakrit, become vêyâlîya or vetâlîya. A play of words was apparently intended; it would have been impossible, if both words had not become identical in sound. We may, therefore, conclude that the language of the author obeyed the same phonetic laws as the Gaina Prakrit exhibited in our Mss., or in other words, that the toxt has been written down in about the same language in which it was originally composed. The name of the Fifteenth Lecture leads to the same inference, for it is called gamaîya (yamakiya) because each of its verses contains the verbal ornament called yamaka. and because it opens with the words gamaiyam (yad atitam)."
As regards the title of the 15th lecture he has said as under on p. 329 by way of a foot-note:
"This lecture has been named from its opening words gamaiyam, which also means, consisting of yamakas (compare Journal of the German Oriental Society, vol. xl, p. 101). For in this lecture each verse or line opens with a word repeated from the end of the preceding one. This artifice is technically called srinkhala-yamaka, or chain-yamaka, a term which seems to be contained in another name of our lecture, mentioned by the author of the Niryukti (verse 28), viz. adâniya-sankaliyâ. For sankaliyâ is the Prâkrit for srinkhalä (e. g. in our text, 1, 5, 2, 20), though Silânka here renders it wrongly sankalita; and âdâniya by itself is used as a name of our lecture."
This 2nd Anga wherein we come across a number of similes1 deals with the refutation of heretical doctrines. Its 1st two ajjhayanas explain the holy life and give us a graphic description of the difficulties a monk should surmount and especially the temptations he should face boldly. The 3rd ajjhayana vividly depicts the various works exacted from a male who has become a slave of his wife owing to his being unduly attached to her, and thereby furnishes us with materials throwing light on the Hindu Society of those days. Then we have an entire ajjhayana which treats of hells and the gruesome torments therein. This is followed
1 For example see I, 1, 2, 15 & 19, I, 2, 1, 15; I, 3, 1, 2 and I. 14, 2. For additional illustrations, the reader may refer to such verses as begin with एवम्. The number of these verses is, no doubt, enormous.
2 In this connection, in A His. of Ind. Lit. (vol. II, p. 440) it is said:
"Like the authors of so many texts of the Puranas and Buddhist Suttas, a section of this Jaina Anga, too dwells with truly Sadistic complacency on the fantastic description of the hells..."