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Sources for the Study of Jaina : A Bibliographic Essay

Christopher Key Chapple Loyola Marymount University, [email protected]

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Recommended Citation Chapple, Christopher Key. "Sources for the Study of Jaina Philosophy: A Bibliographic Essay." Philosophy East & West 50, 3 (2000): 408-411

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Theological Studies at Digital Commons @ Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theological Studies Faculty Works by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons@Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School. For more information, please contact [email protected]. SOURCES FOR THE STUDY OF JAINA PHILOSOPHY: A BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAY

Christopher Key Chapple Departmentof TheologicalStudies, Loyola Marymount University

This essay will seek to identifysome primarytitles in the area of Jaina philosophy, focusing on English-languagematerials published largely in the twentieth century. Thisessay will not include a surveyof social science studies of Jainismand will also not include festschriftsor other collections of essays. I will firstprovide a briefsurvey of individualbooks and series and then offer more extensive commentaryon two books published within the past five years: ThatWhich Is (NathmalTatia's transla- tion of Umasvati's Tattvarthasutra)and Jaina Philosophy and Religion (Nagin J. 'stranslation of Nyayavijayaji'sJaina Darsana). Perhapsthe earliestsurvey of Jainaphilosophy can be found in the SacredBooks of the Easttranslations by HermannJacobi, who publishedthe Acarahgaand Kalpa Sutrasin 1885 and the Uttaradhyayannaand SutrakrtahgaSutras in 1895. Jagman- derlal Jaini's The Outlines of ,published by CambridgeUniversity Press in 1916, lays out the basic premises of Jaina thought regardingthe nature of reality, logic, ethics, and liberation. It includes helpful charts, tables, and stories. For a concise introductionthis book in many ways has not been surpassed. The next majorresources to appear, though sometimes hard to locate, are two series of books: the Sacred Books of the Jainasand the L. D. Series publishedby the LalbahiDalpatbhai Bharati Sanskriti Vidyamandira in . Both series in- clude titles by individual authors that provide access to the major aspects of Jaina philosophy. Titles in the Sacred Books of the Jains include the TattvarthasOtra or TattvarthadigamaSutra of Umasvati, translatedby J. L. Jaini (1920), and the Purusartha-Siddhyupayaof the Digambarascholar Amrtacandra,translated by Ajit Prasada(1933). The L. D. Series, encompassing over one hundredbooks on both Digambaraand SvetambaraJainism, includes general studies, editions of Sanskrittexts, and translationsof texts into Hindi and English.Some notable titles include English translationsby K. K. Dixit of 'sYogabindu (1968) and Yogad.rstisamuc- caya (1970) and the Prasamaratiprakarana,attributed to UmasvatiVacaka, critically edited and translatedby YajneshwarS. Shastri(1989). Other titles include T. G. Khalgati'sKarma and Rebirth(1971) and Suzuko Ohira'sA Studyof the Tattvartha- with Bhasya (1982). These works provide fertile ground for exploring some majortopics of Jainathought, though in nearlyall instances more work can be pur- sued in the areas identified. Helmuth van Glassenapp's book The Doctrine of Karmanin (Bombay:Bai VijibaiJivanlal Panalal Charity Fund, 1942) summarizesthe exhaustive Jaina discussion of . Nathmal Tatia's Studies in Jaina Philosophy(Varanasi:

408 Philosophy East & West Volume 50, Number 3 July 2000 408-411 ? 2000 by University of Hawai'i Press JainaCultural Research Society, 1951) providesa detailed surveyof majoraspects of Jaina thought. Vilas Sangave's Jaina Community:A Social Survey (1959), which includes a discussion of Jainaphilosophy, has been updated in a new edition titled Jaina Religion and Community (Long Beach: Long Beach Publications, 1997). Walther Schubring'sThe Doctrine of the Jainas (: Motilal Banarsidass,1962) gives a comprehensive overview of Jaina thought and history.Mohan Lal Mehta's Jain Philosophyalso presentsthe basic philosophicalteachings (Varanasi:Parshva- nath VidyashramResearch Institute, 1971). Two books published in the past twenty years have made informationon the Jainatraditions broadly available: Padmanabh S. Jaini'sThe Jaina Path of Purification (Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1979) and ' The Jains (:Rout- ledge, 1992). Jaini's work includes a comprehensive introductionto the primary featuresof Jaina religion and philosophy. Dundas provides a similarphilosophical summary and adds additional historical material. Both include extensive biblio- graphic references,though Dundas' book unfortunatelydoes not include diacritical marksfor foreign-languageterms. Within the broader parametersof philosophical discourse, Jaini's later work, Gender and Salvation(University of CaliforniaPress, 1991), examines attitudesto- ward women in the Digambaraand Svetambaratraditions. The formerclaims that women cannot achieve final liberationor kevala because they are not able to fulfill the utmost requirementof total nudity;the latter,which allows clothing to be worn by even its most advanced renouncers,claims that women can in fact achieve Jain- ism's highest goal. William J. Johnson's HarmlessSouls: KarmicBondage and Re- ligious Change in EarlyJainismwith Special Referenceto Umasvatiand (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass,1995) examines the rise of lay religiositythrough adap- tations in Jainathought and practice.My own book, Nonviolence to Animals, Earth, and Self in Asian Traditions(State University of New YorkPress, 1993), places Jaina thought in dialogue with issues of animal rights,theological pluralism,and the end- of-life debate, examiningJaina animal protection,claims of religioustolerance, and the fast unto (/santhara)promulgated in Jainatradition. One of the great debates currentlybeing waged in the area of Jainaphilosophy centers on the issue of the intendedand applied meaningof the philosophyof many- sidedness (anekanta),as Cort'sessay indicates in this issue of PhilosophyEast and West. Forprimary sources on this tradition,two Englishtranslations are particularly helpful for understandingthe purpose and method of examining non-Jainaviews. The first is K. SatchidanandaMurty's translation of Haribhadra'sSaddarsanasa- muccaya (Tenali:Tagore PublishingHouse, 1957). As noted by PhyllisGranoff and Paul Dundas, Haribhadrasuri,an eighth-centurythinker, demonstrated a remarkable interestin understandingthe views of others and presentedaccurate summariesof Hindu and Buddhistschools of thought.The second is F. W. Thomas'translation of The Flower Sprayof the Quodammodo Doctrine: Sri Mallisena'sSyadvadamaiijarT (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1968). This translation of a thirteenth-centurytext investigatesthe religious and philosophical positions of non-Jainasin a systematic

ChristopherKey Chapple 409 manner.Bimal KrishnaMatilal's The CentralPhilosophy of Jainism(Anekanta Vida) (Ahmedabad:L. D. Instituteof , 1981) summarizesthe Jaina insistence on philosophicalcomplexity and explores the sevenfold approachto realityadvocated by Jainathinkers. Parts 2 and 3 of KendallW. Folkert'sScripture and Community: Collected Essayson the Jains, edited by John Cort (Atlanta:Scholar's Press, 1993), presents additionalJaina texts on non-Jainasystems of thought, underscoringthe desire of Jainathinkers to establishthe validityof the Jainaview. Perhapsthe most widely accessible work on Jaina thought is Nathmal Tatia's ThatWhich Is, an Englishtranslation of Umasvati'sTattvartha Sutra, originally pub- lished as part of HarperCollins'Sacred LiteratureSeries and now distributedby AltamiraPress. The TattvarthaSutra, perhaps written as early as the second century C.E.,is accepted by both Digambaraand SvetambaraJainas. As noted by , it occupies a place in Jainatradition not unlike the YogaSutra of Patahjalior Badarayana'sBrahma Sutra, spawning numerouscommentaries and serving as an essential philosophicalsummary of the Jainasystem. Tatiatranslates the ten sections of the text as follows: Categoriesof Truth,Nature of the Soul, Lower and Middle Regions,Gods, Substances,Inflow of Karma,Vows, KarmicBondage, Inhibitingand Wearing Off Karma,and Liberation.Umasvati includes physics and geography as importantaspects of Jaina philosophy. The translationand summary of various commentarialtraditions makes this an importantand essential resourcefor the study of Jainathought. Another recently published work provides a comprehensive introductionto Jaina thought: Nagin J. Shah's translationof Jaina Darsana, written by Muni Shri Nyayaviyayaji.Written in an engaging and accessible style, Jaina Philosophyand Religion(Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass,1998) covers the primarytopics mentioned in the TattvarthaSOtra, with frequentquotations from the works of Haribhadra(eighth century)and Hemacandra(twelfth century). This book presentsan accurateaccount of Jaina philosophy as taught by Jaina within Indiatoday and demonstrates the ongoing presentationof the basic teachings of infinitesouls (jTva),six substances (motion, rest, space, matter,time, and souls), eight (knowledge-covering, vision-covering,feeling-producing, deluding, longevity-determining,body-making, status-determining,and obstructive),bondage (),and liberation (kevala).It also explains the centralityof religiousvows ()and the fourteenstages of spiri- tual ascent ().Of particularnote is the extensive chapteron Jaina logic, which includes nearlyfifty pages on the "SevenfoldJudgment" (SaptabhahgT-naya). Due to its readable style and frequentquotations from source materials,this book makes an excellent and comprehensive introductionto Jaina philosophy as con- ventionallyinterpreted. A greatdeal of work remainsto be done in the area of Jainaphilosophy. Only a tiny fractionof Jaina philosophical literaturehas been translatedinto Western lan- guages. The interpretationof Jainathought in terms of social history has begun in earnest (see, for instance, John Cort'sedited volume Open Boundaries:Jain Com- munities and Culturesin Indian History).Additionally, many of the broaderissues

410 PhilosophyEast & West and challenges posed by the Jainafaith in the areas of cosmology and ethics, as well as the Jainaphilosophy of freedom and the human person, meritfuller investigation and discussion. Though this bibliographicalsurvey of Jaina philosophical literatureis by no means exhaustive, it does perhaps convey a sense of the dynamism and ongoing debate within this importantfield of religiousand philosophicalstudy.

ChristopherKey Chapple 411