Dr. Samani Mangal Pragya
In the preface of Bhagavaī, Part-I, Acharya Mahapragya discussed about Bhagavaī in several contexts. Efforts have been made to extract the important facts from here.
The fifth aṅga of dvādaśāṅgī is Viāhapaṇṇatti. Its Sanskrit name is Vyākhyāprajñapti. It is written in question-answer style. Vyākhyā means explanation and prajñapati means exposition. The text which exposes the reality with explanation is known as Vyākhyāprajñapti. Samavāyāṅga and Nandī use both Vyākhyāprajñapti and vyākhyā as the name of the text. Vyākhyā is a short name of Vyākhyāprajñapti.
Another title of this text is Bhagavatī. Vyākhyāprajñapti has a special distinction hence, the term Bhagavatī is used as an adjective of the title. Subsequently, this adjective itself is commonly used as title of the text. In past centuries, the title Bhagavatī became more popular than its original title Vyākhyāprajñapti.
In the Digambara tradition, the Kasāyapāhuḍa, mentions Vyākhyāprajñapti among the five adhikāra (chapters of Parikarma); they are Candraprajñapti, Suryaprajñapti, Jambūdvīpaprajñapti, Dvīpasāgaraprajñapti and Vyākhyāprajñapti. In the literature of śvetāmbara tradition, however, the mention of Vyākhyāprajñapti is made only as the fifth aṅga canon. If we accept the belief, that eleven aṅgas are extracted from twelfth aṅga, then, on the basis of digambara sources, the Vyākhyāprajñapti can be considered to be the compilation from the fifth chapter of parikarma pūrva. The contents of both the treatises are similar. The parikarma by name Vyākhyāprajñapti explains many subjects such as corporeal and non corporeal, sentient (soul) and non-sentient beings (non-soul), the characteristics and correct notions of bhavya (soul worthy of liberation) and abhavya (reprobate), liberated souls and the description of many other subjects.
Tattvārtharājavārtīkā, Nandī and Samavāyāṅga also narrate the topics of vyākhyāprajñapti and inform about soul, non-soul and other substances.[1]
