Monday, January 7, 2013

General rules regarding the re-use of texts (Part 1): Jain peculiarities?

During the last Coffee Break Meeting, we had some time to share ideas and compare results in our investigations on the re-use of texts in Indian śāstras. What do you think about the following points?

  1. 1) Almost everything is of foreign nature in the Objector (Pūrvapakṣa), whereas much more is the author's own voice in the Conclusive reply (Siddhānta) (I owe this point to Himal Trikha). I had the same feeling while reading Jinendrabuddhi's commentary on the Pramāṇasamuccaya. Is this only a Jaina-Buddhist practice? Did you ever find evidence of the opposite? 
  2. 2) What is typical of Jains, and why? Does the anekāntavāda lead to more quotations, more respect to the others and hence, acknowledgement, appreciative, value of the author? If the anekāntavāda plays no role in this respect, why is it the case that Jains preserve more manuscripts (and seem to have embedded more texts into their own)? Has this anything to do with the fact of living in a monastery, and —thus— having a library at disposal? Or with the minor emphasis on the absolute value of memorization and oral knowledge?
On the last Coffee Break Metting, see this post (for my introduction) and this wiki-page (for program, abstracts and other materials).

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