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 228

COMPARISON AND EVALUATION
215
VII 1
vision, sulla is three-fold viz, sanna-sutta,' karaga-sulta2 and payarana-sutta, and from another it is of two kinds viz. ussaggiya and aca või ya In the com. (p. 97 on v. 318, 3 varieties of a sutra are differently noted. They are: utsargasūtra, aparadasutra and utsargāpavadasutra. Further, this com. adds apavadotsargasūtra
to these three and thus notes 4 varieties of a sutta. It also fur
nishes us with corresponding examples. This exposition of the various varieties of a sutta has its own value, even when it has a parallel in the non-Jaina literature.
equivalents such as
Out of these the last
The word sutta has several Samskṛta supla, śruta, sukta, sutra, śrotra and srotas. two are here, out of question. And so is the 1st meaning of sutra out of 3 viz. (i) a prologue of a drama (vide Mohaparajaya 48), (ii) a scripture (vide Thana iv, 4) and (iii) a thread. The meaning 'thread' is acceptable; for, it can be construed as a thread of tradition- the tradition preserved and perpetuated by a succession of Tirthankaras.
There are two allegations made by some of the scholars" regarding the word sulta used by the Jainas and the Bauddhas. They are: (i) The word sutta is used in the loosest sense possible.
1-3 Ayara (I, 2, 5, 88), Viahapannatti (I, 9, 79) and Namipavajja are the respective instances of these suttas.
J By adding vihi-sutta, ujjama-sulla, vannaya-sulla and bhaya-sutla to these 8 varieties we get 7. See Arhatadarsanadipika (p. 816).
5
A sulla becomes six-fold when two more varieties of it vi utsargotsargusitra and apavadāpavadasutra, are taken into account along with this. Ibid., pp. 818-819.
6 Prof. Jarl Charpentier is one of them. In his intro. (p. 32) to his edition of The Ullaradhyayanusutra he says: "It may further be noted that the term sutra is in reality very inappropriate to the sort of compositions included in the Siddhanta, inasmuch as we usually understand by sutra's the very short and concise compendiums of ritual, grammar, philosophy and other sciences. But sutra has apparently another sense amongst the Jains and Buddhists, and there is little doubt that it was their purpose in adopting this name rather to contest the claims of their Brahmanical opponents to be solely in possession of real canonical works than to imitate the style and modes of expression of the Brahmanical sutra-literature."