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An Outline of the Religious Literature of India c11.s2: iii. Jainism.

An Outline of the Religious Literature of India c11.s2

Language
English

Contents

iii. Jainism.

A. Śvetāmbara Literature.

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§ 333. *Śvetāmbara* literature was already very rich and varied at the opening of this period, and during the first three centuries it rose to its utmost splendour and strength, displaying all its variety and brilliance in its chief representative Hemachandra. Then came the Muhammadan conquest of the North, in which Jains were cut to pieces, harried, and persecuted in the same way as Hindus and Buddhists were. The fact that the community survived at all is proof of the strength of its character and organization, but it has never regained its former influence and splendour.

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The work of elucidating books of the Canon in the classical style in Sanskrit, so brilliantly begun by Haribhadra and Śīlāṅka in the ninth century, was carried forward by another pair of writers, Abhayadeva of the eleventh century, who took Śīlāṅka for his model, and Malayagiri of the twelfth century, who followed Haribhadra. There were other scholars—notably Śāntisūri, Devendra-gaṇi and Tilakācārya—who did further expository work of real value in Sanskrit. Śrīchandra-sūri, a junior contemporary of Hemachandra, left a number of Prākṛit commentaries.

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Several works of genuine religious power were written during the period, especially by Hemachandra and Āsaḍa; and Jain apologetic, dogmatic, and philosophy were eagerly cultivated. Criticism of Hindu and Buddhist philosophy was very popular, the writers usually following the example of Haribhadra and calling their works ‘Six systems’. A number of famous sacred odes were composed, the most notable writers being Śobhana, his brother Dhanapāla, and Abhayadeva the expositor.

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Innumerable romantic tales both in Sanskrit and Prākṛit appeared. Dhanapāla, Devendra-gaṇi, and Devabhadra wrote in Sanskrit, while Hemachandra’s *Vasudeva Hiṇḍa* is in Prākṛit. Closely allied to these is the *prabandha*, a narrative of a semi-historical character consisting of a series of stories about well-known men of the recent past, and also the *charita*, or biography of a Jain saint. Both of these types of books minister to the instinct which seeks to know the facts of men’s lives, but they are first of all edifying literature, and for that reason the tales are treated with a good deal of freedom. Hence, while a great many of the stories, especially those of more recent date, contain historical elements, legend plays a large place in them.¹ Most of these books are in Sanskrit, but a few are in Prākṛit, e. g. Guṇachandra’s *Mahāvīra-charita*.

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¹ Bühler, *Hemachandra*, 6; Tawney, *Prabandhachintāmaṇi*, Preface.

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§ 334. During the first half of the period the powerful influence of the Vedānta leads to the acceptance among Jains of a sort of Brahman, an eternal spirit behind the Tīrthakaras¹; and the idea survives here and there to this day, but it has never really modified or weakened the essential atheism of the system. This faint reflection of Vedantic thought in Jainism is curiously similar to the far more powerful Ādi-Buddha doctrine in Buddhism.

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¹ *IA.* VII. 106; Rice, *Mysore and Coorg from the Inscriptions*, 103; Suali, *GSAI.* IX. 28; Barth, *RI.* 146.

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§ 335. The following seem to be the most outstanding personalities among the writers of the time.

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Two brothers belonging to the latter half of the tenth century, Śobhana and Dhanapāla, the latter a protégé of both Muñja and Bhoja, kings of Malwa, distinguished themselves greatly as writers of sacred odes in Sanskrit. Dhanapāla’s *Rishabhapañchāśikā*, fifty stanzas in praise of Rishabha, one of the Tīrthakaras, is well known, while Śobhana’s hymns are still more famous. Dhanapāla’s *Tilakamañjarī*, a volume of tales in highly artificial Sanskrit, is worthy of comparison with the *Yaśastilaka* by the contemporary Digambara scholar Somadeva.

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Abhayadeva is the greatest name among Śvetāmbaras of the eleventh century. Following the example of Śīlāṅka, he wrote Sanskrit commentaries on nine of the chief canonical works, viz. the third to the eleventh Aṅgas inclusive, and many other texts. Of his original works the best known is an ode to Pārśvanātha called *Jayatihuyaṇastotra*, which he is said to have composed, as a plea for release from a disease, while standing in worship before that Tīrthakara’s image.

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Devabhadra (1086–1169), a famous logician, completely defeated the Digambara scholar Kumudachandra in a controversy on the question of the salvation of women, held at the court of Jayasiṃha at Anhilvāra-pāṭaṇ in Gujarāt in A. D. 1124, and thereby prevented the Digambaras from getting a foothold in the city.

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But the greatest of all Śvetāmbara writers is Hemachandra, who lived from 1089 to 1173, and spent most of his life in Anhilvāra-pāṭaṇ the capital of Gujarāt. He had great influence at court from A. D. 1125 onwards, and still greater after 1159, when he won over king Kumārapāla to Jainism. He was a writer of extraordinary industry, scholarship, and versatility. His chief religious books are the Yogaśāstra, a treatise on Jain ethics and asceticism, and the Vitarāgastuti, a poem in thirty-two stanzas in praise of the passionless life, both written to establish his royal convert in the faith. His three works in the field of legendary history and biography, already referred to, are the Trishashṭi-śalākā-purushacharita, a Jain history of the world, its appendix, the Pariśishṭaparvan, which contains the lives of the Jain prophets and teachers, and his biography of Mahāvīra, the Mahāvīracharita. His Vasudeva Hiṇḍa, a large collection of romantic tales, told in Prākṛit and mostly in prose, may be set beside Haribhadra’s Samarāichchakahā. He is also the author of a Jain Rāmāyaṇa, the Rāmacharita. But his literary activity was not merely religious but covered almost the whole field of the culture and science of mediaeval India. He wished to give Jains the fullest possible opportunity of becoming educated and capable men. He therefore wrote on logic, grammar, rhetoric, poetics, lexicography, and politics. His Sanskrit and Prākṛit grammars and lexicons are weighty scientific works which have been widely used.

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Āsaḍa came of the royal family of Bhilmal in Gujarāt. One of his sons died young, and a Jain teacher did his best to give him religious consolation. The bereaved father wrote in 1191 the Vivekamañjarī in memory of his son, working the teacher’s words of consolation into beautiful verse. Another of his works, the Upadeśakandalī, is praised as being rich food for pilgrims on the road to Release.

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Jinadatta’s Vivekavilāsa, which was written about A. D. 1220, is a sort of summary of religious knowledge, including sketches of systems other than Jain.

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Amarachandra, a noteworthy poet of the middle of the thirteenth century, wrote for the Jains the Bālabhārata, a sketch of the *Mahābhārata* in some 6,500 Sanskrit verses, and a *Kāvya* on Padmanābha, the Jain Tīrthakara who is expected to appear next. He is also the author of three works on poetics.

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Prabhāchandra is the author of the earliest life of Hemachandra, the *Prabhāvakacharita*, which appeared about 1250, while his contemporary Devendrasūri is remembered because he wrote five of the six *Karmagranthas*.

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Merutuṅga (A) flourished early in the fourteenth century, and is most famous for his *Prabandhachintāmaṇi*. The first four chapters of this *prabandha* contain a good deal of valuable history and biography, but the remainder is legend. He also wrote the *Muñjaprabandha* in Prākṛit. Rājaśekhara is the author of *Prabandhakośa* (published in 1349 at Delhi), which is of considerable value, and a collection of tales called *Antarakathāsaṅgraha*.

B. Digambara Literature.

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§ 336. The Digambara literature of the period is not so rich as the Śvetāmbara, yet it has considerable variety and a large part of it is in Kanarese. Commentaries were written on several of Kuṇḍakuṇḍa’s works, and Nemichandra (late tenth century) produced a number of fresh philosophic books of considerable importance. Numerous purāṇas both Sanskrit and Kanarese appeared, and legendary history and biography were not neglected. Amongst the most popular works are Jain versions of the Epics in Kanarese.

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At the beginning of the tenth century lived Amṛitachandra, a brilliant commentator. He expounded three of the works of the early Digambara scholar Kuṇḍakuṇḍa, the *Samayasāraprabhṛita*, the *Pañchatthiyasangahasutta*, and the *Pravachanasāra*, and wrote a work on the Digambara categories, the *Tattvārthasāra*, and the *Purushārthasiddhyupāya* on the means whereby man may reach perfection. Bālachandra (c. 1100) wrote a commentary on the *Prābhṛitasāra*, another of Kuṇḍakuṇḍa’s works.

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One of the most famous of Kanarese poets is Pampa, who wrote in 941 his Kanarese adaptation of the *Mahābhārata*, which is known as the *Pampa-Bhārata*, or the *Vikramārjuna Vijaya*. He is also the author of the Kanarese *Ādi Purāṇa*.

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We notice next the *Yaśastilaka* of Somadeva, a series of tales told in very artistic Sanskrit, to recommend the Jainism of the Digambara sect. It is technically a *kathā*, i. e. a composition in prose which breaks into verse when the story becomes surcharged with feeling. It is a work of great literary power, which would have held a high place in Sanskrit literature, had it not been Jain. It was written in A. D. 960 under the Rāṣṭrakūṭa king Kṛṣṇa III.

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Chāmuṇḍarāya was chief minister to the Western Gaṅga king Mārasimha II and also to his successor Pañchāladeva. They reigned in Mysore. He is noteworthy first as having erected at Śravaṇa Beḷgoḷa a colossal image of Gommateśvara about A. D. 980, and secondly as being the author of the *Chāmuṇḍarāya Purāṇa*, which is the earliest existing work in Kanarese prose and is dated A. D. 978. It gives an account of each of the twenty-four Tīrthakaras.

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One of the teachers whom Chāmuṇḍarāya revered was Nemichandra Siddhānta-chakravartī, who is the author of five dogmatic works in Prākṛit verse, which have been much used, *Dravya-saṃgraha*, *Gommatasāra*, *Labdhisāra*, *Kṣapaṇasāra*, and *Trilokasāra*. The *Dravyasaṃgraha* and the *Trilokasāra* are always included among the books mentioned under the Secondary Canon. He seems to be the Nemichandra who lived about A. D. 990 and wrote the first Kanarese novel, *Līlāvatī*.

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The *Paramātma-prakāśa* is a Sanskrit work in 344 stanzas by Śrī-Yogīndra Āchārya, but the date is not known. The purpose of the work is to oppose theistic teaching, and the method employed is to try to show that the human soul is the truly divine spirit. Numerous Vedantic terms are used.

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Āśādhara, a layman and a native of the country by the Sambhar lake, fled, while still a young man, from his home, at the end of the twelfth century, to escape the violence of the Musulman invaders and took refuge in Dhārā. There he became a learned Jain, and wrote fourteen works, most of them on the Jain faith. The most famous of these is the *Dharmāmṛita*, or Nectar of Religion, which describes the duties of Jain ascetics and laymen. His *Trishaṣṭismṛiti* is a collection of stories about sixty-three persons drawn from the Jain Purāṇas.

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There were a number of notable men among the Kanarese Jain poets. Pampa, Ponna, and Raṇṇa—all tenth-century men—are called the three gems, but Abhinava Pampa also deserves a place beside them. Pampa’s *Ādi Purāṇa* is said to be ‘unequalled in style among the Kanarese poets’. His Kanarese *Mahābhārata*, called the Pampa Bhārata, in which he identifies his own princely patron Arikesari with Arjuna, is also much admired. The fame of Ponna and Raṇṇa rests in each case on a Kanarese Purāṇa. Abhinava Pampa, who flourished about A.D. 1100, is also the author of a Purāṇa, but it is his *Pampa Rāmāyaṇa* that has brought him glory. It is a Jain recast of the ancient story. The whole atmosphere is Jain, and all the heroes are faithful to the Jain faith.

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We may also mention the *Jivaka-Chintāmaṇi*,¹ a Jain Tamil *Kāvya* or romance in verse, written probably in the tenth century.

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¹ Barnett, *BMCTB*. 4.

Cites (31)