Philosophy In Jain Agams: Jñātādharmakathā

This is the sixth text of dvādaśāṅgī. It has two śrutaskandhas. The first śrutaskandha is named as 'Nāyā' and the second śrutaskandha is 'dhammakahāo'. Conjunction of both the names of two sections makes the title of the text 'Nāyādhammakahāo'. Nāyā (Jñātā) means example and dhammakahāo means religious illustrations. In this text both actual and imaginary citations including stories are illustrated.

In Jayadhavalā, this text is called 'Nāhādhamma-kahā'. Here nāhā means master; hence Nāthadhammakahā means religious citations preached by spiritual masters (i.e. tīrthankaras). Some Sanskrit texts accept its name to be Jñātṛdharmakathā. Acharya Malayagiri and Abhayadeva Suri have defined Jñātādharmakathā as an illustration based, spiritual preaching. According to this, the first section has Jñātā and the second section contains dharmakathā i.e. spiritual illustrations and stories. Both the commentators have mentioned about the long alliteration of the Jñāta word, because if it is not then it should remain nāya not nāyā.^[1]

Structure

This text is also divided into two śrutaskandha, twenty nine chapters, twenty nine topics and twenty nine sub topics. Word count is numerable thousand words.^[2] At present, among two śrutaskandhas, the first has nineteen chapters and second has ten groups of chapters. In total they make twenty nine chapters. Here, we must pay attention to the fact that the ten groups of chapters of second śrutaskandha have different number of chapters in each group for example: First group has five chapters, the second has five chapters, third has fifty four chapters, fourth again has fifty four chapters, fifth group has thirty two chapters, sixth group has thirty two chapters, seventh group has four chapters, eighth group has four, ninth group has eight and tenth group has eight chapters. In Nandī, the number of chapters is twenty nine as mentioned, but this count stands correct only if the chapters of both first and second śrutaskandha are combined. Western philosopher Winternitz has counted twenty one chapters of first śrutaskandha,^[3] but this information does not stand correct in the context of the currently available text since only nineteen chapters of this śrutaskandha are available to us and not twenty one.

Contents

According to Nandī Sūtra, Jñātādharmakathā mentions cities, persons (whose citations are mentioned), gardens, temples, forests, samavasaraṇa, king, parents, spiritual teachers, spiritual stories, prosperity of this world and of the other world, renunciation of consumerism, initiation, duration of initiations, scriptural study, penance process, Samlekhanā (fasting unto death), bhakta-pratyākhyāna the death which is embraced through fasting unto death in the state of samādhi, Prāyopāgamana (the third and the highest type of fasting unto death, transmigration to heaven after death, rebirth in good/aristocrat families, enlightenment and salvation.

Dharmakathā has ten groups. Each group has 500 illustrations. Each illustration has 500-500 sub-illustrations. Each sub illustration has 500-500 stories and sub stories. Altogether, it comes to three crores and fifty lacs (thirty five million) illustrations.^[4]

At present, the available text highlights spiritual teachings such as non­violence, detachment, faith, control over sensuous pleasures etc. in a very interesting manner. Not only the story, but also the descriptions of the events in the story are presented in a very attractive way. This āgama is very significant for stories, sub stories, descriptions, events and appropriate use of words etc. It is possible to produce some new styles and facts if it is studied in comparison with other story books of the world.^[5]