Draft of article forthcoming in: (Non) Violence in Jaina Philosophy, Literature and Art. Ed. By P. Flügel.
The paper examines an aspect of the Jaina doctrine of yonis ("place of birth/origin"), namely, th... more The paper examines an aspect of the Jaina doctrine of yonis ("place of birth/origin"), namely, that their number would, in total, comprise eighty-four "hundred-thousand" (Hindi: lākh, English: lakh). The doctrine is of relevance up to the present day, as it enumerates all life forms recognized in the Jaina cosmos, i.e., the totality of possible objects for (a)hiṃsā. The first part of the paper assembles (1.1) attestations for this doctrine in literatures of the Digambaras; (1.2) the Śvetāmbaras; and (1.3) other South Asian ascetic traditions. The second part consists of (2.1) a timeline for the Jaina attestations; (2.2) the discussion of alternatives for the age of the doctrine; (2.3) hypotheses on the history of its development; and (2.4) an analysis of the discussion of the doctrine in early Digambara commentaries on the Tattvārthasūtra.
The "growing interest in Jainism and … the increasing number of publications on the Jain traditio... more The "growing interest in Jainism and … the increasing number of publications on the Jain tradition" (Flügel 2005: 8) has had little efect on stimulating philological studies on Jaina philosophy. Despite outstanding research activities in various areas of Jaina studies, few philologists focus on Jaina philosophical literature, works or concepts per se. 1 Current "trends in Jain studies" (Balbir 2014) include textual studies pertaining to the religious and narrative literature, the study of middle Indian languages, studies of Jaina art or sociological and anthropological studies. 2 Except for a few extensive and systematical studies, 3 recent philological research on Jaina philosophy mostly focuses on selected issues, 4 on the examination of selected arguments in a wider context 5 or on the collection of results from earlier research periods. In the following I present an overview of major trends of research on a segment of Jaina philosophical literature, i.e., the Sanskrit writings of authors from the 5th to the 15th centuries, who used a characteristic terminology pertaining to principles of the scholarly debate (vāda) and to the means of valid cognition (pramāṇa).
Preprint version of an article to be published in:
Proceedings of DOT 2013, Panel: “Adaptive Re... more Preprint version of an article to be published in:
Proceedings of DOT 2013, Panel: “Adaptive Reuse of Texts, Ideas and Images”. Ed. by Elisa Freschi and Philipp Maas (forthcoming 2015).
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this p... more The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
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Proceedings of DOT 2013, Panel: “Adaptive Reuse of Texts, Ideas and Images”. Ed. by Elisa Freschi and Philipp Maas (forthcoming 2015).