The Kalpa Sutra, and Nava Tatva

Excerpt from The Kalpa Sutra, and Nava Tatva: Two Works Illustrative of the Jain Religion and Philosophy

Ceylonese date of the death of Buddha is rc. 543, and the death of the Tirthankara having taken place in 569, we obtain the reasonable period of twenty-six years, for the demise of the preceptor before his pupil. The Kalpa b'utra, according to a date embodied in the work itself, was composed 980 years after the demise of Mahavira, that is to say, a.d. 411. The public reading of the work took place twelve years afterwards, as narrated in the Introduction. The author's name was Bhadra Bahu, and the sovereign who then reigned in Gujarath, was Dhruva Sena. The four commentators who, between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, have commented on the work, are Yasovgaya, whose Sanskrit work, called Sakhabadha, has been used in making the annexed translation, Devichandra, the Gujarathi translator chie?y fol lowed, and J nanavimala, and Szimayasundaia. There is so little of Eastern extravagance exhi bited in the age and date of the death of Mahavira, that one is glad for once to escape exposure to the spirit of scepticism which so generally haunts the European in his antiquarian researches in India.

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