Manatungacarya aur unke Stotra & Anusandhan.

• Author: CORT, JOHN E.
• Position: Review

Manatungacarya aur unke Stotra. By MADHUSDAN DHANKI and JITENDRA SAH [M. A. DHAKY and JITENDRA SHAH]. Sri

Svetambar Murtipujak Jain Bording Granthamala, vol. 13. Ahmedabad: SHARADABEN CHIMANBHAT EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH CENTRE, 1997. Pp. 11 + 135.

Anusahan. Edited by ACARYA VIJAY SILCANDRASURI and HARIVALLABH BHAYANI [H. C. BHAYANI]. ahmedabad; KALIKALASARVANA SRI HEMACANDRACAYA NAVAM JANMASATABDI] SMRTISAMSKAR SIKANNIDI, 1993- . [Available from Saraswati Pustak Bhandar, 112 Hathikhana Ratanpole, Ahmedabad 380001. Rs 35 per issue.]

Dhaky's and Shah's slim book is the definitive study of the Bhaktamara Stotra by the Acarya Manatunga, which is, one could argue, among the most popular Jam texts. A rough count of the twenty-three thousand plus manuscripts in the Svetambar libraries of Patan, north Gujarat, reveals that nearly one percent of the manuscripts contain the Bhaktamara Stotra, a percentage probably exceeded only by the Kalpa Sutra and Bhagavai Sutra. The predilection of Western scholarship on the Jams to focus on the earliest textual layers of the tradition has led to the almost complete neglect of this text. Even Hermann Jacobi, whose very first publication on Jainism was an edition and German translation of this hymn (Indische Studien 14 [1876]), failed to take account of its universal popularity in his subsequent studies of Jainism. In addition to the thousands of manuscript copies of the text in Indian libraries, the text has been the subject of more than twenty elaborate commentaries [1] has been recast as a repository of po werful mantras and the liturgy for elaborate mahapujas, and has been imitated by more than a dozen Sanskrit, Prakrit, and vernacular poets. There are dozens of modern printings of it, ranging from H. R. Kapadia's large 1932 edition complete with three Svetambar commentaries and full critical apparatus, to thin pocket-sized 6cm x 8cm copies, several of which have been presented to me by Svetambar nuns. At Jain pilgrimage centers one can purchase cassette tapes of filmi versions sung by professional Bombay playback singers. Thousands of Jains, both mendicants and laity, know it by heart, and sing it daily as part of their devotions. It is surprising that there is no tradition of Svetambar manuscript illustrations; Saryu Doshi reports that only from the seventeenth century did Digambar patrons begin to commission illustrated copies of it. [2]

The text exists in two recensions, a forty-four-verse Svetambar version...