Introduction
The L. D. Institute of Indology, Ahmedabad, has great pleasure in publishing a critical edition of Prasamaratiprakarana by Umasvati, together with an authentic English translation, Introduction and detailed critical notes. Dr. Yajneshwar S. Shastri has spared no pains and has edited the text with the utmost care of a scholar. He consulted as many as 15 Mss., palm-leaf, paper and published and with scientific acumen and due sense of discrimination with regard to the value of each one of the mss. he chose 10 for his editing work. This makes the present work coming into the hands of scholars and interested readers for the first time as a standard critical edition together with an English translation. All aspects-philosophical, ethical, religious of Jainism and the Jaina way of life as propounded by the author are discussed as a great scholar should do, with utmost care and minutest details in the Introduction. Other topics discussed in comparative light are also enlightening.
We are thankful to Dr. Yajneshwar S. Shastri, who worked on the project and gave the present work to the world of scholars through the Institute of which he is Acting Director at present.
16th May, 1989. R. S. Betai
General Editor
Jainism is one of the three major religions of India. Since 2500 years, it has made manifold contributions to Indian Society through its literature, religion and philosophy. Jaina philosophers contribution to Indian philosophy after 4th Century A. D. is a landmark in the History of Jainism. Really, the Jains Philosophy as such started from the works of Acarya Umasvati Vacaka. It is his two main works, written in Sanskrit for the first time in the history of Jainism viz., Tattvarthadhigamasutra and Prasamaratiprakarana that played a major role in placing Jainism on the map of Indian philosophical systems. He holds the same position in the history of Indian philosophy which the great Gautama, Kanada, Kapila and others hold. The credit of presenting fundamental tenets of Jainism, for the first time, in Sanskrit language goes to Umasvati. It is no exaggeration to say that the entire Jaina Philosophical palace is built on the soled foundation laid by Umasvati. He is the only revered philosopher-saint who is highly respected by all the sects that developed within the Jaina Community.
Prasamaratiprakarana is a most authentic work on Jaina Philosophy and Religion. It is the first and earliest work written in Sanskrit poetic form to propagate Jainism and to guide layperson, by a first rank philosopher of Jainism. Though this work is undoubtedly from the pen of the same author who has written Tattvarthasutra with Svopajnabhasya, the Digambaras do not accept it as a work of Umasvati. I have tried to throw some light on this matter in my Introduction. This work is really a compendious one and covers almost all the important doctrines of Jainism. This work is always held in high esteem by the Jaina community and considered as a source-philosophical point of view. Considering its importance in the field of knowledge, an attempt has been made to fulfill a long-felt need of critical edition with English translation.
The Introductory essay is really a study on Prasamaratiprakarana in which I have tried to give a gist and importance of this work. This Introduction is divided into 9 chapters. The Ist chapter deals with Umasvatis life history, viz., family, caste, date, sect and works in brief. In the IInd chapter, an attempt is made to substantiate the view that Prasamarati is a work of Umasvati, on the basis of internal and external evidences. In the IIIrd chapter Subject-matter of 22 chapters is given in summary form. The Ivth chapter deals with different commentaries written on Prasamarati. The Vth and VIth chapters, respectively deal with Ethical and Philosophical aspects of Prasamarati in detail. The VII and VIIIth chapters are devoted to comparison between Tattvarthasutra and Prasamarati and between Prasamarati, Jaina Agamas and some non-Jaina works. The Ixth chapter contains critical remarks on Prasamaratiprakarana. Foot-notes of Introduction are given at the end of Introduction itself for the reader’s convenience.
For the first time this work has been presented with critically edited version with the help of more than 15 Mss. (Including palm-leaf, paper and published.) Out of these I have selected 10 Mss. for editing. Description of these 10 Mss. is given on separate page. A separate list of available (palm leaf as well as published) Mss. on Prasamarati in different places (Bhandaras) is also given in foot-notes No. 52 of introduction, for the interested scholars reference. I am fortunate to obtain two of the oldest palm-leaf Mss. one with Haribhadras commentary and the other with an unknown authors commentary from Patan, written in 1241 A. D. and in 1431 A. D., respectively. Both are in very good condition. The palm-leaf Ms. with Haribhadras commentary is a very good one and seems to be copied by a person of good knowledge of Sanskrit. The specialty of this Ms. is that, it is neatly written and neither grammatical nor orthographical mistakes are found. This is an oldest and authentic Ms. on which my editing is based. I have also accepted one more published Ms. with Haribhadras commentary as ideal copy. On the bases of these two Mss. I have omitted corrupt and incorrect regardings found in other Mss. Paper and published Mss. are consulted to make my reading perfect. The main reason in consulting some published Mss. is that they are published on the basis of view of critical editing. I have, in my editing, mentioned only important readings avoiding many wrong readings such as grammatical or metrical found in different Mss.
Again, it is for the first time that this work is translated into English and I am perfectly aware of my own limitations. Translation of Sanskrit verses into a foreign language is not an easy task. Some times it becomes very difficult to translate Sanskrit terms into English. The translation is as literal as possible and it is done strictly keeping Jaina Philosophical lines in mind. I tried to give exact rendering as far as possible. While translating a verse I have added some times a few words in to brackets to give complete meaning of the stanza wherever I felt necessary. This addition in translation is also mostly based on Haribhadras commentary. For the sake of convenience of the readers English translation is given immediately after each verse. Along with translation a few elucidatory notes on technical tems are given below translation, whenever it is felt necessary. Foot-notes’ numbers are given in English translation. Those numbers mentioned on the top of each word in the original Sanskrit verses are numbers of variant readings found in different Mss. and given in Appendix-I. Readers are requested to note this point. To make this edition complete as far as possible in itself I have given a list of Subhasitas found in Prasamarati in Appendix-II, and in Appendix-III, Alphabetically arranged verse-index is given. Recently Dr. K. V. Sheth in carge of Ms. Dept gave me a newly found paper Ms. of Prasamarati with Jasasomaganis brief commentary (Sankseparthavrtti). It is unknown and unpublished so far. Thus, I have included it in the Appendix-IV and I have given details about this Ms. in the end of description of Mss.
At the outset, I feel it a solemn duty to express my deep sense of gratitude to Pt. D.D. Malvania, a renowned Indologist of our present day, who went through the complete Introduction and gave valuable suggestions. I must also express my indebtedness to my scholarly colleague Dr. R. S. Betai for his valuable suggestions and corrections in my English rendering from time to time. I am highly obliged to the authorities of the L. D. Institute of Indology for including my research work under the L. D. Series.
I hope, this humble contribution of mine will be of help to the students and scholars of Indian philosophy in general and Jaina philosophy in particular.
Ahmedabad. Yajneshwar S. Shastri
May, 1989.
The present edition of the Prasamaratiprakarana is based on the following 10 Mss. :
A.1 This is the best and oldest palm-leaf Ms. with Haribhadras commentary labeled as:, written in V.S. 1298 = 1241 A.D. found in Hemacandracarya Jnana Bhandar, Patan, No-68-1. It has 192 folios (leaves) containing 3-4 lines per page and 55 60 words in a line. The size of each page is about 35.5 x 3.7 C. M. It is in very good condition. It is written in black ink in Devanagari characters. Double strokes are used to show the end of each verse. The specialty of this Ms. is that it mentions Granthagra after every hundred and verse numbers and granthagra are marked with red color (geru). On the right side of the palm-leaf, page numbers are given in Devanagari and on the left side numbers are mentioned. This Ms. is written in two parts (Khanda). In the middle of the Ms. there is a hole to tie the Ms. The last leaf is a little torn and piece of paper is pasted on it.
In this Ms. chapter numbers are not regularly mentioned. The Copyist was not very serious about mentioning numbers of chapters. After the end of each chapter, some times, he is regular and some times mentions two to four chapters collectively. For example, after verse 227 he mentions. Again the scriber is careless inputting verse numbers. On account of copyists mistake, at the end of the Ms. we find a total of 315 verses, but actually there are only 313. Instead of putting 274, he numbered 275, and in place of 303, he puts 304. Total mentioned Granthagra of this Ms. is 1800.
This Ms., begins with :
(Original language words are missing)
and ends with:
(Original language words are missing)
The colophon which gives the date of the Ms., runs like this:
(Original language words are missing)
A.2 This is a published Ms. along with Haribhadras commentary in pothi form, published by Jivachand Sakerchand Javeri, for the Seth Devachand Lalbhai Jain Pustakoddhar Fund Series No. 88 at Surat, in 1940. This published Ms. is based on Ms. copied by Amrta Vijaya, V.S. 1823.
B.1 This is a palm leaf Ms. with an unknown authors commentary, 35 x 3.7 Cm. in size, with a label, Prasamarativrtti. It is from Hemacandracarya Jnana Bhandar, Patan, No-68-2. It contains 300 leaves and it is written in Devanagari script on both sides of the leaves in black ink. It is a very carefully written Ms. Each side of the leaf has 3-4 lines and about 52-53 words in each line. It gives only first verse of the Prasamarati in full and then throughout the commentary, gives only beginning of the each verse. It gives only first verse of the Prasamarati in full and then throughout the commentary, gives only beginning of the each verse. It gives word to word explanation of the text. On the right side of every leaf numbers are given. It seems from the colophon that, an old Ms. was having torn leaves and those torn leaves were rewritten on papers by Punyamerugani and Hemasagaragani in V.S. 1487 (=1431 A.D.). But some leaves are missing in this Ms. viz. commentary on verses 309-313. Total mentioned Granthagra is 2500.
It begins with:
(Original language words are missing)
and ends with
(Original language words are missing)
Colophon runs like this:
(Original language words are missing)
B.2 This is a paper Ms. with the text and an unknown authors commentary, written by an unknown copyist in Nagor in V.S. 1951 (1905 A.D.). This Ms. belongs to L.D. Institute of Indology, No-10283, about 25.4 x 12.2 Cm. in size. It contains 80 folios written on both the sides in black ink. Each page contains 10-12 lines and 44-48 words in each line. It is written in Tripatha style, i.e., original text is in the centre and the commentary is on the upper and lower part of it. It is in very neat and clear Devanagari script, double numbers are given on the right side of each folio in red ink. In a few places verse numbers are marked with geru (read muddy ink). On the left-side, top corner of each folio, name of the work and folio numbers are mentioned. Margin on each folio, is marked with tripple lines in red ink. For the sake of decoration red lines are drawn on four sides in the corner of each folio. Condition of the Ms. is very good. But it seems that the copyist was not well-versed in Sanskrit Language. On account of this, we find many orthographical errors. Short and long ovals are not given proper care. Verse are written collectively and only one number is given for both. For example, verses 4 and 5 are written together and only no. 4 is given to both. Some times, that copyist has written first line from one verse and second line from another and put collectively one number. On account of these mistakes we find in this Ms. only 310 verses, though, there are in all 313 verses with commentary.
It begins with:
(Original language words are missing)
It ends with:-
(Original language words are missing)
B.3 This is a published Ms. with an un-known authors commentary and avacuri, published by Sri Jaina Dharma Prasaraka Sabha, Bhavnagar in V.S. 1966. It is in Pothi form and has a total of 95 pages.
- This is paper Ms. about 26.5 x 11.3 Cm. in size, with a label, Prasamarati Prakarana No. 5514m from L. D. Institute of Indology, Ahmedabad. It contains only original text in 5 folios. It is written on both the sides of country made paper in Devanagari characters in black ink, in V.S. 1531 (=1475 A.D.) There are 18 lines per pages and 76-82 words per line. Condition of the Ms. is very good. Writing is very clear and strokes are given before and after each verse. Verse numbers are marked with red muddy color (geru). Folio number is given on the right side of each folio in the lower corner of the folio. Margins marked with three lines on both the sides in red ink. The speciality of this Ms. is that it has central flower mark (Madhyaphullika) in the middle of every side of the folio. It is copied by Nathaka in Samvat 1531 (=1475 A.D.). It begins with (The original words language are missing) and ends with (The original words language are missing)
- This is a published Ms. edited by Modi Keshavlal Premchand, in Ahmedabad in V.S. 1960. It has a total of 36 pages and it is based on two Mss. In the end of this published text, beginning and end of the two Mss. are given.
- This is a published Ms with Gujarati explanation by Karpura Vijaya. It is published by Jaina Dharma Prasaraka Sabha, Bhavnagar in V.S. 1988. It is in Pothi form and has a total of 111 pages.
- This is published Ms. by Jaina Sreyaskara Mandal, Mehasana with Gujarati translation by Karpura Vijaya in V.S. 1966. It is published along with some other small treatises such as Paramasukhapraptirupacittasuddhiphalam etc.,
- This is again a published ms. with Hindi Bhavanuvada, by Muni Padmavijaya. It is edited by Nemichandra Maharaj and published by Nirgrantha Sahitya Prakashana Sangha, Delhi in 1969. It has a total of 172 pages.
Description of paper Ms. of Prasamarati with commentary (brief) of Jasasomagani (see Appendix-IV)
This paper Ms. belongs to L.D. Institute of Indology, Ahmedabad, No. 45706. This is with brief commentary (avacuri type) by Jasasomagani. It is written in V.S. 1668 = 1612 A.D. in Vatapalli nagar (i.e., present day Palli near Patan). It contains 14 folios and is written in Tripath a style (i. e. original text is in the middle and commentary is on the upper and lower side of the folio). The beauty of this Ms. is enhanced by Madhyaphullika, Swastika and Riktalipicitramaya tree. The commentator has also, saluted his guru (teacher) Sri Harsasomagani in Riktalipicitra (i.e., Pandita Sri Harsasomagani gurubhyo namah-Folio 3rdA to 8A). It is in very good condition though it is more than 375 years old. Size of the Ms. is 26 x 11. Cm. Verse numbers are shown in red ink. Margins of both sides are marked with three lines in red ink.
It begins with:-
(Original language words are missing)
and ends with
(Original language words are missing)
This is a brief commentary on Prasamarati. The commentator himself calls is Prasamaratiprakaranasya sanksepato arthavrttih. It is really a kind of avacuri and lacks originality of its own. It is completely based on two earlier commentaries and avacuri. All the 313 verses are not commented upon by this commentator.[1] This commentary gives meanings of certain difficult terms. He has commented up to 295 verses that also leaving many verses uncommented in between. Though this commentator includes all the 313 verses of Prasamarati, on account of irregularity of giving verse numbers, we find only 310 verses in the end of this text. This commentator also mentions in the end that Prasamarati cantains only 312 verses (I. e. Prasamarateraryasatatrayam dvadasottaram parisamaptamiti) though he includes all the 313 verses.
A Critical study on Prasamaratiprakarana, its authors life history, its authorship, its Summary, its Commentaries, Ethical and philosophical Aspects, Comparative study with Tattvarthasutra, Jaina Agamas and Some non-Jaina Texts and Critical remarks.