Vyavahara Bhasya Pithika: Acarya Gunabhadra's Parsvacaritram.

AuthorDundas, Paul
PositionPandit Nathuram Premi Research Series, vol. 4, and Pandit Nathuram Premi Research Series, vol. 26 - Book review

Vyavahara Bhasya Pithika. By WILLEM BOLLEE. Pandit Nathuram Premi Research Series, vol. 4. Mumbai: HINDI GRANTH KARYALAY, 2006. Pp. ix + 158. Rs. 400.

Acarya Gunabhadra's Parsvacaritram: The Life of Parsva. By WILLEM BOLLEE. Pandit Nathuram Premi Research Series, vol. 26. Mumbai: HINDI GRANTH KARYALAY, 2008. Pp. 46. Rs. 60.

Over the last fifteen years researchers in Prakrit and Jainism have been heartened to see that retirement from academic duties has not in any way lessened the output of Professor Willem (W. B.) Bollee, whose name has been throughout his career a byword for scholarship of the highest standard in the field of Middle Indo-Aryan studies. The two volumes under review, which exemplify their author's erudition to the full, both relate to Jainism, but are markedly different in orientation.

The Vyavaharasutra is one of a group of texts in the Svetambara Jain agama, collectively known as the cheda sutras, which deal with disciplinary regulations within the renunciant community. (Similarly named, much shorter texts are found among the Digambara Jains, but they have remained virtually unknown to scholarship.) These texts generated a considerable exegetical literature from around the second half of the first millennium C.E., the study of which is still under-developed. The reasons for this are two. Firstly, acaryas of the image-worshipping orders in Svetambara Jainism have invariably been reluctant to endorse study of the cheda sutras and their commentaries by non-renunciants, owing to the fact that frequent reference within these texts to exceptions deriving from particular circumstances which can override general disciplinary rules might lead to the moral standing of monks and nuns being questioned by outsiders. The second reason is more simple. The exegetical literature on the cheda sutras, particularly the Prakrit nirykti, curni, and bhasya genres of commentaries, is highly technical and difficult of access. Nothing remotely corresponding to a critical edition of any of these commentarial texts (other than Bollee's own edition of the Brhatkalpabhasya) is available and only a very few intrepid scholars have been able to move within this field with any degree of comfort.

The Vyavaharabhasyapithika is an introduction (pithika) to the Prakrit verse commentary (bhasya), possibly by Sanghadasa (c. 7th-8th cen.), on the Vyavaharasutra. As such, it seeks to delineate the methodological criteria for assessing the necessary conduct...

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