Article: Prakīrṇaka-sūtras

The nine celestial elements
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Mostly, the Prakīrṇakas do not repeat what is found in other categories of the Śvetāmbara canon. Rather, certain texts in this group single out and deal extensively with topics or trends found in other Śvetāmbara scriptures that are not developed there. Examples include:

• fasting unto death
• medical knowledge
• subjects relating to divination or predictions.

Mentioned in the Aṅgas and Upāṅgas, these themes are treated more systematically in several Prakīrṇakas. Thus the Prakīrṇaka writings are kinds of supplements. Other subjects are also covered in some detail in other Śvetāmbara scriptures, such as:

• hymns
• Jain cosmology
• monastic life
• general principles.

One Prakīrṇaka – the Ṛṣi-bhāṣitāni – is unique among the holy writings. Using both poetry and prose, it is made up of a number of individual works. Of disputed age, it shares some elements with Buddhist texts and the Hindu Upaniṣads.

The contents of many of the Prakīrṇakas show that they are directed explicitly or implicitly at the Jain ascetic rather than the Jain lay man. This is particularly true of the works that deal with the predominantly mendicant practice of fasting to death.

Fasting unto death
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Several Prakīrṇakas are concerned with the theme of fasting to death. A theologically important notion, it is honoured among Jains as a profound expression of faith and spirituality. Though it is touched on in various writings of the Śvetāmbara canon, fasting to death is discussed in detail in some of the Prakīrṇakas.

This ritual practice is mentioned or described in several passages of the Aṅgas, the primary class of Śvetāmbara scriptures. It is the recommended final stage of a pious religious life, as seen in many canonical stories found in the eighth and ninth Aṅgas. The pattern story is that of Khandaga Kaccāyana, a brahmin converted to Jainism, whose life story is narrated in the fifth Aṅga – the Vyākhyā-prajñapti.  Examples of ascetics fasting to death are more numerous, but the seventh Aṅga – the Upāsaka-daśā – which is concerned only with Jain lay men, show that they can also decide to die this way.

This subject has become crucial to Jain identity. A number of Prakīrṇakas deal with it at length, principally the:

• Ātura-pratyākhyāna in its various versions
• Bhakta-parijñā
• Mahā-pratyākhyāna
• Maraṇa-samādhi or Maraṇa-vibhakti
• Saṃstāraka.

Although they vary in length, these texts are closely interrelated and occasionally borrow material from each other, so that the boundary between them is rather thin. Some of them seem to focus rather on the monk, while others also include the lay man in their coverage of the ritual.

These Prakīrṇakas turn around the notion conveyed by the Prakrit term ārāhaṇā and the Sanskrit term ārādhanā – ‘reaching the goal’ – by resorting to ‘the ‘wise [one]’s death’ – paṇḍita-maraṇa. The person who strives for this goal is an ārādhaka. Such texts thus form a Śvetāmbara counterpart to the Bhagavatī Ārādhanā, a Digambara work written in Śaurasenī Prakrit. Its lengthy discussion of the topic has produced a range of story books centring around the names of saints mentioned in its verses.

These Prakīrṇakas share several common themes regarding fasting to death. Also called the ‘wise one’s death’, this ritual has significant spiritual and mental dimensions, which are crucial for the process to be considered a proper performance of the ritual.

Suicide – the fool’s death
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These five Prakīrṇakas explain at length the main points relating to the ritual of the ‘sage’s death’.

Firstly, fasting to death – paṇḍita-maraṇa – is presented as the opposite of ‘the fool’s death’ – bāla-maraṇa. The former is the result of a decision taken in full consciousness and is the final step in a long practice and training in pious life, whether as a monk or lay man. The terms parijñā and samādhi in two of the titles point to a decision taken with awareness and concentration. The Sanskrit term samādhi-maraṇa is also used to refer to this type of death. The fool’s death, on the contrary, covers various forms of suicide, the result of being subject to passions or delusion.

Secondly, a mendicant may choose this type of death when his or her physical capacities weaken with incurable illness, great age or other circumstances. The Ātura-pratyākhyāna specifies irremediable sickness as a possible reason. The reasons for choosing the sage’s death given in the Prakīrṇakas are slightly different from what one reads in the first Aṅga of the Śvetāmbara canon. The Ācārāṅga states that external conditions should not be motivating factors in this decision.

Thirdly, in order to be achieved fully, the sage’s death needs careful preparation. This requires the assistance of a teacher or mentor of some sort. He is present throughout the full process, from when the mendicant proclaims his decision until the last instant.

Next, the faster must complete certain prerequisites before beginning the ritual, including:

• giving up worldly pleasures
• victory over sense organs – that is, not being ruled by the senses
• observing proper conduct
• enduring all hardships
• giving up attachments of all sorts.
• restating mendicant or lay vows.

Hence the texts often include stanzas describing the ‘three jewels’ of Jain doctrine:

• right faith – darśana
• right knowledge – jñāna
• right conduct – cāritra.

The Prakīrṇakas also pay homage to the Five Entities – Pañca-parameṣṭhins – who illustrate these qualities in the best way.

Fifthly, the practitioner must prepare mentally. It is vital that the faster is totally cleansed of mental impurity, passions, sins and so on. This is achieved by making confession, asking for forgiveness and performing atonement. If faults are not confessed properly, they remain in the heart as pricking thorns that make one suffer. The Prakrit word saṃlehaṇā (see for instance Maraṇa-vibhatti 176) and its Sanskrit equivalent sallekhanā – which has become the standard term for this practice – actually means ‘scraping or emaciating the passions’ (Williams 1963: 166).

Furthermore, the faster must possess moral firmness to complete the practice properly. This moral purposefulness is guaranteed by concentration or meditation – bhāvanā or anuprekṣā – on proper topics, such as the:

• disgusting nature of the body
• miseries experienced by the embryo
• painfulness of rebirths
• ultimate loneliness at the hour of death.

Related to this is the moral support provided by the teacher or mentor. This support implies offering the faster similes and, especially, examples from stories. The model characters in these tales decide to resort to specific penances and finally achieve them, bearing pains and difficulties without their resolve weakening. Several of the Prakīrṇakas unfold verses which briefly describe the lives of such figures. Sanatkumāra, who endured all diseases, and Gajasukumāla, who resisted extremely painful tortures, are among those often referred to. For example see Maraṇa-samādhi stanzas 413ff or Saṃstāraka 56–87 (von Kamptz 1929).

Next, the wise one’s death consists, in practice, of reducing the amount of food in stages. Towards the end, the practitioner takes only fluids, taking gradually smaller quantities until nothing at all is consumed. The Prakīrṇakas codify modes of renunciation, which the assisting teacher can adjust to the dying one’s capacities. Details of the ritual of fasting unto death are found more specifically in the Bhakta-parijñā.

In addition, the practitioner has also left his monastic community and no longer uses his mendicant equipment. He is therefore outside his usual environment.

Finally, the faster resorts to ‘a bed of straw’ – saṃstāraka. He lies on this until he dies, attended by his teacher.

When taken together, all these texts thus provide a full picture of all the aspects relating to fasting to death. But it should be noted that the practical aspects are not always their main concern. Rather, considerable emphasis is put on the mental and spiritual elements of the full process.

Moon’s path and eclipse
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Two of the Prakīrṇakas treat subjects outside the Jain teachings. The Jyotiṣa-karaṇḍaka and the Taṇdula-vaicārika deal with quite technical matters on unrelated areas. The former provides great detail on time and calendars and on astronomy. The Taṇdula-vaicārika, on the other hand, is concerned with the physical body and medicine.

The Jyotiṣa-karaṇḍaka is explicitly a work on time-measurement, astronomy and calendrical matters. Containing a lot of information that can be compared with non-Jain works on these topics, it thus represents an important contribution of the Jains to this area of knowledge. Among other things, it provides information on:

• the various instruments that can be used to measure time, such as the clepsydra or water clock
• divisions of time
• calculations relating to the lunar days
• the movements of the stars
• revolutions of the moon and the sun
• the length of seasons.

The Taṇdula-vaicārika is so named because it deals with the amount of ‘rice grains’ – taṇḍula –consumed by a man in a life of one hundred years. More broadly, it is concerned with matters relating to the nature of the physical body. The text expands on expositions found in the second and fifth Aṅgas.

The general idea is that the body is disgusting and should be considered impure and impermanent. This observation is not specifically Jain, being found also in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions. But this text connects with the trend of Jain thought where the body is the starting point for thinking and meditation on the impure and the impermanent. Practice of the dharma is the only thing that is secure and is a way to overcome rebirth. In contrast, human beings of the distant past, who lived at the time of the first Jina Ṛṣabha, for instance, represent a kind of golden age and had perfect physical constitutions.

The development of the argumentation allows the transmission of information on several areas of knowledge relating to the human body (Caillat 1974). These include:

• the different stages of the formation of the embryo in the womb, from conception to maturity and birth
• elements of gynaecology
• anatomy of the body
• medicine proper, with all the diseases that may affect the body.

The result is that the Tandula-vaicārika can be read as a Jain counterpart and supplement to medical knowledge found in the Āyurvedic tradition.

The area of using signs to predict the future is represented by the Gaṇi-vidyā, in the context of monastic life.

The ‘true monk’
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Two Prakīrṇakas are concerned with elements of monastic conduct. The Gaṇi-vidyā concentrates on the knowledge the leader of a monastic group should command. The Gacchācāra, on the other hand, deals with monastic life in general plus the subject of celibacy.

The Gaṇi-vidyā deals with what the head of a monastic group – gaṇin – should know. This is not knowledge in general, but a technical type of knowledge conveyed by the term vidyā, which is close to astrology and divining the future. According to passages in the Jain scriptures, mendicants should not resort to this type of knowledge and practice. However, in practice this means ‘not all mendicants’. Such recommendations are meant to stop ordinary monks indulging in divinatory activity rather than banning it altogether.

The head of a monastic group is here presented as being in charge of knowledge connected with the calendar. This is important because he or she should know which dates are appropriate for the different activities that make up mendicant life.

The nine sections of the text are:

• natural days
• lunar days
• constellations
• divisions of the day – karaṇas
• days of the planets
• moments – muhūrta
• omens of bird activity
• astral conjunctions
• interpretation of signs.

The Prakīrṇaka known as the Gacchācāra deals with monastic conduct. According to the text itself, it is extracted from the Cheda-sūtras. These Śvetāmbara canonical works are specially devoted to the rules mendicants must follow in their daily lives and to penances in case of lapses. Unlike all Jain scriptures, it is meant to be read by monks and nuns alike. It can be viewed as a convenient abstract of technical and difficult works that are not always put in the hands of all mendicants. The emphasis is both on the monastic group as a whole – the gaccha – and on the behaviour of each of its components, namely:

• the teacher – ācārya or sūri – who is the support of the whole community
• the monk – sāhu in Prakrit – at various ranks
• the nun – ajjā in Prakrit.

The issues of the relationship between monks and nuns and the conditions required for observing proper celibacy are discussed here in some detail.

Kinds of human lives
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The place of the Ṛṣi-bhāṣitāni in the Śvetāmbara Jain scriptures is unique and special. In mixed prose and verse, the Sayings of the Seer – Ṛṣi-bhāṣitāni – are individual compositions each attributed to a named seer. They display some archaic linguistic features, which have led some scholars to class this work as rather old. Others, however, consider this text as new work in old garb, which is perhaps intended to lend it the authority of ancient compositions.

This Prakīrṇaka is most adequately described as ‘a collection of some early views on simple religio-philosophical matters held by various thinkers of the time’ (Bhatt 1979: 163). Indeed, the names of some of the seers are found in non-Jain sources as well. Some of the verses and literary images have precise parallels and counterparts in Buddhist scriptures. This suggests that some of the poems, if not the whole work, may reflect shared concerns. Other statements point to parallels with those expressed in early Brahmanical thinking, as represented in the Upaniṣads (Nakamura 1967–68).

The subjects on which proclamations are made relate to:

• transmigration
• the nature of the soul
• the nature of truth
• the role of karma.

The stanzas are often concise and enigmatic – as if to underline that they do not come from ordinary persons but from wise individuals with visionary qualities.

Mountain Beyond Mankind
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Two Prakīrṇakas discuss Jain cosmology, a substantial topic underlying religious doctrine. It is thus an important element of religious belief and features in other holy writings.

The Dvīpa-sāgara-prajñapti is a supplement to what is found in other texts of the Śvetāmbara canon describing the Jain universe. This Prakīrṇaka focuses on components that are not dealt with extensively in these other writings. Among these items are the:

• Mānuṣottara mountains, which mark the boundary of human life
• Añjana mountains
• Ratikara mountains
• Kuṇḍala continent
• Rucaka continent.

The Tīrthodgālī is a long text concerned with:

• Jain Universal History
• the origin of Jain teaching from the first Jina, Ṛṣabha
• the possible disappearance of the teaching and the extinction of the scriptures.

This last will occur at an extremely distant period of time, when King Kalkin insults the Jain teaching. The comprehensive description of the figures of Jain Universal History – the Jinas, the Cakravartins, the Baladevas and the Vāsudevas – takes place in the context of a broader discussion on the cycles of time. This describes the descending eras – avasarpiṇī – and the descending eras – utsarpiṇī.