Anekāntavāda, The Central Philosophy of Ājīvikism
Author: Johannes Bronkhorst
Year: 2013
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 9, No. 1 (2013) 1-11
Abstract
Ājīvikism, a vanished Indian religion, has been admirably studied by A. L. Basham in his 1951 monograph. Since then, a renewed study of the existing evidence has led to an improved understanding of this religion. New evidence, moreover, has shown that this religion remained intellectually active and influential at least until the end of the first millennium CE. This paper will discuss other evidence again, also from the end of the first millennium, which appears to show that Ājīvikism shared the anekāntavāda with Jainism, but not only that. Like Jainism, it used the anekāntavāda to solve a problem that did not arise until many centuries after the time of Mahāvīra. It follows that Jainism and Ājīvikism remained closely in close contact with each other for at least half a millennium since their beginning, perhaps longer, and shared some crucial intellectual developments.
A Neglected Śvetāmbara Narrative Collection, Hemacandrasūri Maladhārin's Upadeśamālāsvopajñavṛtti Part 1 (With an Appendix on the Funeral of Abhayadevasūri Maladhārin)
Author: Paul Dundas
Year: 2013
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 9, No. 2 (2013) 1-47
Abstract
The Śvetāmbara teacher Hemacandra Maladhārin (eleventh-twelfth century) is often confused with his near contemporary Hemacandra Kalikālasarvajña. This paper analyses the sources describing his life and works and goes on to focus upon his Prakrit verse collection, the Upadeśamālā, and his autocommentary, the Puṣpamālā. Seventy narratives from the Puṣpamālā are discussed (fifty-eight with identifiable sources, twelve with unidentified sources). An appendix provides text and annotated translation of Śrīcandrasūri's account of the cremation of Hemacandra Maladhārin's teacher Abhayadevasūri Maladhārin, possibly the first eye-witness account of a renunciant funeral in pre-modern India.
Localized Literary History: Sub-text and Cultural Heritage in the Āmer Śāstrabhaṇḍār, A Digambara Manuscript Repository in Jaipur
Author: Ulrich Timme Kragh
Year: 2013
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 9, No. 3 (2013) 1-53
Abstract
The article critically discusses the underlying principles for the writing of literary history. It rejects a universalized model and proposes a new approach of "localized literary history" that is theoretically rooted in metahistorical concepts of "textory" and "sub-text". The method takes its starting point in local text-collections rather than national literature. With the Jain Āmer Śāstrabhaṇḍhār repository in Jaipur as a point of departure, it is demonstrated how a study of a local manuscript collection reveals a literary history, which cannot be encountered by the universalized approach.
A One-Valued Logic for Non-One-Sidedness
Author: Fabien Schang
Year: 2013
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 9, No. 4 (2013) 1-25
Abstract
The Jain saptabhaṅgī is well-known for its general stance of non-one-sidedness. After a number of debates about the occurrence of contradictory sentences inside the so-called "Jain logic", three main theses are presented in the following: the saptabhaṅgī is a theory of judgment giving an exhaustive list of possible statements; it is not a "logic" in the modern sense of the word, given that no consequence relation appears in it; the Jain saptabhaṅgī can be viewed as a dual of the Madhyamaka catuṣkoṭi, where four possible statements are equally denied. A formal semantics is proposed to account for these theses, namely: a Question-Answer Semantics, in which a basic question-answer game makes sense of every statement with the help of structured logical values. Some new light will be also thrown upon the controversial notion of avaktavyam: instead of being taken as a case of true contradiction, our semantics will justify a reduction of the Jain theory of non-one-sidedness to a one-valued system of question-answer games.
The Perfect Body of the Jina and His Imperfect Image
Author: Phyllis Granoff
Year: 2013
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 9, No. 5 (2013) 1-21
Abstract
The Yuktiprabodha of the Śvetāmbara monk Meghavijaya engages the views of Bāṇārasīdās and the adhyātma movement on a number of issues. This paper explores their debate about whether or not it was appropriate to adorn images of the Jina. Bāṇārasīdās argued emphatically that adorning the image did violence to the Jina, who as a renunciant had abandoned all forms of adornment. Meghavijaya argued that it was only by adorning the Jina image that a sense of the Jina’s extraordinary beauty and radiance could be conveyed. In the course of the debate Meghavijaya raises far-reaching questions about how images function and how they are actually “seen” by worshippers.
Muni Ratnacandra’s Nine Jain Questions for Christians
Author: Peter Friedlander
Year: 2013
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 9, No. 6 (2013) 1-30
Abstract
This article examines a rare, and possibly unique, manuscript which describes an encounter between Jain monks and Christian’s from an unknown denomination of Padres which took place in 1854 at an unidentified location either in Rājasthān or the Pañjāb or possibly in Agra. What makes this work so interesting is that whilst there has been considerable scholarship on the early stages of Buddhist-Christian and Hindu-Christian debates there has been little work on encounters between Jains and Christians. The work takes the form of nine questions posed by Muni Ratnacandra (1793-1864) disciple of Muni Harjīmal (1783-1832) of the Manohardās order of the anti-iconic Sthānakavāsī tradition. The questions which Christians should be asked reveal unique features in how Jain tradition responded to encounters with Christians. I argue that the main arguments deployed against Christianity in the text are all adapted from earlier Jain arguments deployed against other teachings. The importance of this text then is that it allows us to have a unique insight into how Jain vernacular tradition responded to Christianity during the mid 19th century.
“Today I Play Holī in My City” Digambar Jain Holī Songs From Jaipur
Author: John E. Cort
Year: 2013
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 9, No. 7 (2013) 1-50
Abstract
The springtime festival of Holī has long posed a problem for Jains. Jain ideologues have criticized the celebration of Holī as contravening several key Jain ethical virtues. In response, Digambar Jain poets developed a genre of Holī songs that transformed the elements of Holī into a complex spiritual allegory, and thereby “tamed” the transgressive festival. This essay analyzes the six Holī songs (pad) by the poet Budhjan (fl. CE 1778-1838) of Jaipur. An investigation of this Digambar genre of Holī songs encourages us to see that many of the “Hindu” Holī songs from this same period were also engaged in a process of reframing and taming Holī. Both Hindu and Jain songs translated its antinomian and transgressive elements into softer, less threatening sets of metaphors specific to their spiritual traditions.
Prabhācandra’s Status In The History Of Jaina Philosophy
Author: Jayandra Soni
Year: 2013
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 9, No. 8 (2013) 1-13
Abstract
In dealing with the history of Jaina philosophical speculation after the age of the Āgamas, K. K. Dixit in his now well-known 1971 work Jaina Ontology (pp. 88–164) conveniently divides the speculations into three stages which he calls the “Ages of Logic”. It is Prabhācandra, one of the thinkers of the third stage (apart from Abhayadeva, Vādideva and Yaśovijaya) which concerns the content of this paper, because Dixit makes contrary statements about him. On the one hand, he says that “the range of Prabhācandra’s enquiry was less comprehensive than that of Vidyānanda and his treatment of topics less advanced than that of the latter” (p. 103). And, on the other hand, on p. 156, he says that Prabhācandra “had made it a point to introduce in his commentaries an exhaustive and systematic discussion of the major philosophical issues of his times” (even including aspects not found in his predecessors, e.g. theories of error).
Dr Peter Flügel
Chair, Centre of Jaina Studies
Department of the Study of Religions
Faculty of Arts and Humanities
School of Oriental and African Studies
University of London
Thornhaugh Street
Russell Square
London WC1H OXG
Tel.: (+44-20) 7898 4776
E-mail: pf8@soas.ac.uk
http://www.soas.ac.uk/jainastudies