Researches for Prākṛt pūrva texts from Dṛṣṭivāda Sūtra which are said lost but are not lost according to Samavāyāṅga Sūtra § 148.

Blog in the Study-Group of OM-ARHAM.org: Researches for Prākṛt pūrva texts from Dṛṣṭivāda Sūtra which are said lost but are not lost according to Samavāyāṅga Sūtra § 148.

 

EXCERPT from the text of the Ṣaṭpāhuḍa or Ṣāṭbrābhṛta of Kundakunḍācārya.

Kundakunḍācārya’s text is divided into six chapters called pāhuḍas or prābhṛtas (theses?), whose several names are given in a memorial verse which the writer of the present copy puts before the beginning of the commentary (in which, as is usual, the text is imbedded), and writes in the red ink otherwise reserved for the prākṛt gāthās themselves:

 

 

 

I give as a specimen of the work a few gāthās from the beginning of the sixth chapter, that on mokṣā, or final deliverance:

 

 

“Glory, glory to the divine being who, destroying within himself karma (works), and leaving off every external thing, obtains that self whose essence is knowledge.”

 

“Having first done honour due to that divine being who lives in the full light of knowledge boundless and most excellent, who alone is pure, I sing of that perfect self which is attained by the saints.”

 

“That self which to know is to be a saint: which, inviolable, imperishable, incomparable, when the saint sees face to face, he obtains everlasting deliverance.”

 

“The organs of sense are the outer self; the thought in the heart is the inner self; that divine thing that is free from the stain of karma is the highest self.”

 

 

“He who has loosed himself from sins, and the body of sin, (the kārmaṇaśarīra) becomes a perfect and eternal one, blameless, all-knowing, pure in soul, exalted, a ‘winner of the fight’ (a Jina), all blessing and all blessed.”

 

“Rising to the height of that inner self and leaving off the outer self in all three ways (i.e., thought, word, and deed), he sees himself to be one with that Highest Self; this is the doctrine of the Saints (Jinendras).”

 

 

“If a man fall from his true estate, and, beguiled by the senses, love the things of this world, he will, ah foolish one ! mistake his body for his true self.”

 

“And as with his own body so with the bodies of wife, children, and friends, the wise man should consider well how they're lifeless things taken up for the time by the bearer.”

“But men in their folly, not considering the truth of things, look at wife and children, and know not what is self and what is not self.”

 

 

“And cleaving to the wrong doctrine, rooted in the wrong way of thinking, they grow in folly as they persist in calling their bodies themselves.”

 

 

“But the ascetic who takes no thought of the body, who is indifferent alike to pain and pleasure, who calls nothing his own, who begins nothing, (i.e., does nothing that has the seed of another life in it), who knows himself, he attains to everlasting rest.”

 

 

“He who loves the world is bound in the chain of works. He who loves it not is loosed. This is in brief the doctrine of the Jinas with regard to deliverance from spiritual bondage.”

 

 

Here ends the quote of the beginning of the sixth chapter of Ṣaṭpāhuḍa or Ṣāṭbrābhṛta by Kundakunḍācārya.

 

 

 

 Dr. G.C. Jain has opined that the term ‘Pāhuḍa’ had many connotations and it has two related words like ‘Pāhuḍa-pāhuḍa’ and pāhuḍikā. It has two synonyms: adhikāra and arthādhikāra. Vīrasena states the term is made up of two words: Prābhṛta = Pra + Ābhṛta which means established or elaborated by the best or ford-builder or Ācāryas. Secondly, Yativṛṣabha has grammatically derived the word ‘pāhuḍa’ in many stages from Pada + sphuṭa pa-a + sphuṭa pā-sphuṭa pā-phuṭa pā-muḍa pā-huḍa which means any context elaborated through syllables or lines (Padas).

 

Cf. ‘Saṁvara [part 396]’ https://www.facebook.com/groups/692614454130155/permalink/947425911982340.

 In a note the commentator enforces this doctrine by the following verse, which is found in Mānatungā’s Bhaktāmarastotram:

 

 

“If, Jinendra, your power is great, it is because the wise look into their own heart with the consciousness that they and you are one: let one whom a snake has bitten, drink water, being fully persuaded that it s the nectar of the gods and it will check the ravages of the poison.”

 

 

[cf. ‘Saṁvara [part 920]’ Bhaktāmara Stotra v. 41 https://www.facebook.com/groups/692614454130155/permalink/1313590438699217

 

Who wants to read the whole Bhaktāmara Stotra may start with the Introduction and follow verse by verse, s. ‘Saṃvara [part 879]’ https://www.facebook.com/groups/692614454130155/permalink/1308778915847036];

 

However, who checked the whole Bhaktāmara Stotra (Smaraṇa no. 7) will find more similarity to Smarana no. 8: Kalyān Mandir Stotra v. 17 which is given as follows:

 

“O Lord of the Jinas! The devotees who meditate upon you attain to your superior ability in this world. This is like a phenomenon of water when (continuously) looked upon as nectar attains the qualities of nectar and destroys the effect of poison.”

 

[cf. ‘Saṃvara [part 928]’ https://www.facebook.com/groups/692614454130155/permalink/1332537520137842].

In the commentator’s colophon to several of the divisions of the work, I find it stated that the author of the gāthās boasted of five names in all (nāmapañcakavirājita), Śrī-Padmanandi, Kundakunḍācārya, Elācārya, Vakragrīvācārya, Gṛdhrapicchācārya, and was the pupil and successor of Śrī-Jinachandrasūribhaṭṭāraaka. Of himself Śrutasāgara tells us that he wrote his commentary at the request of Śrī-Mallibhūṣaṇa, that he was skilled in Sanskṛt and Prākṛt poetry, and that he was the pupil of Śrī-Vidyāndi, and the grand-pupil, if I may coin a word for praśiṣya, of Śrī-Devendrakīrti. The spiritual lineage:

 

Kunḍakunḍācārya, Padmanandi, Devendrakīrti, Vidyānandi, Mallibhūṣaṇa,

 

in that order occurs at the end of a copy of Hernachandra's Prākṛt Grammar in the Bodleian Library (Aufrecht's Catalogue, p. 180); though there Padmanandi is distinguished from Kunḍakundācārya, and the language used would seem to indicate for the other names that the succession is not from master to pupil, but includes several gaps.

Source: A second Report of Operations in Search of Sankrit MSS. in the Bombay Circle April1883-March 1884 by Professor Peter Peterson, Extra Number of the Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1884, pp. 80-82.