''Mahapurana'' (महापुराण) or ''Trishashthilkshana Mahapurana'' is a major
Jain text
Jain literature () refers to the literature of the Jain religion. It is a vast and ancient literary tradition, which was initially transmitted orally. The oldest surviving material is contained in the canonical ''Jain Agamas'', which are wri ...
composed largely by ''Acharya''
Jinasena during the rule of
Rashtrakuta
The Rashtrakuta Empire was a royal Indian polity ruling large parts of the Indian subcontinent between the 6th and 10th centuries. The earliest known Rashtrakuta inscription is a 7th-century copper plate grant detailing their rule from Manapu ...
ruler
Amoghavarsha and completed by his pupil Gunabhadra in the 9th century CE. Mahapurana consists of two parts. The first part is ''
Ādi purāṇa
Ādi purāṇa is a 9th-century CE Sanskrit poem composed by Jinasena, a Digambara monk. It deals with the life of Rishabhanatha, the first ''Tirthankara''.
History
Adi Purana was composed by Jinasena (a Digambara monk) as a Sanskrit poem pr ...
'' written by ''Acharya'' Jinasena in
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...
. The second part is ''
Uttarapurana
''Uttarapurāṇa'' is a Jain text composed by ''Acharya'' Gunabhadra in the 9th century CE. According to the Digambara
''Digambara'' (; "sky-clad") is one of the two major Jain schools and branches, schools of Jainism, the other being ...
'' which is the section composed by Gunabhadra in
Apabhraṃśa
Apabhraṃśa (, , Prakrit: ) is a term used by '' vaiyākaraṇāḥ'' (native grammarians) since Patañjali to refer to languages spoken in North India before the rise of the modern languages. In Indology, it is used as an umbrella term for ...
.
Description
The ''Trishashthilkshana Mahapurana'' was composed by
Jinasena, Gunabhadra and
Chavundaraya
''Cāmuṇḍarāya'' or Chavundaraya (Kannada ''Cāmuṇḍarāya, Cāvuṇḍarāya'', 940–989) was an Indian people, Indian Jain ruler. He served in the court of the Western Ganga dynasty of Talakad (in modern Karnataka, India). A perso ...
in 9th century CE.
Mahapurana consists of two parts. The first part is ''
Ādi purāṇa
Ādi purāṇa is a 9th-century CE Sanskrit poem composed by Jinasena, a Digambara monk. It deals with the life of Rishabhanatha, the first ''Tirthankara''.
History
Adi Purana was composed by Jinasena (a Digambara monk) as a Sanskrit poem pr ...
'' written by ''Acharya'' Jinasena. The second part is ''Uttarpurana'' which is the section composed by Gunabhadra. ''Adipurana'' contains about 37 chapters where as ''Uttarapurana'' contains about 65 chapters.
The completed and edited text was released by Lokasena, pupil of Gunabhadra in a celebration at
Bankapura in the court of Vira-Bankeyarasa in 898 CE. The first 42 ''Parvan''s of this text were written by Jinasena, while remaining
34 ''Parvan''s were composed by Gunabhara.
This text gives an encyclopedic account of the Jain tradition. The text is widely quoted. A widely used quote in
Carl Sagan's Cosmos, written in the Mahapurana (Chap 4, verses 16–31, 38–40) is:
"Some foolish men declare that a Creator made the world. The doctrine that the world was created is ill-advised, and should be rejected. If God created the world, where was He before creation? . . .How could God have made the world without any raw material? If you say He made this first, and then the world, you are faced with an endless regression . . . Know that the world is uncreated, as time itself is, without beginning and end. And it is based on the principles . . . – The Mahapurana (The Great Legend), Jinasena (India, ninth century)",
A number of Jain and non-Jain texts have been influenced by the Mahapurana. Mahapurana was the model for
Saiva Siddhanta Periyapuranam which gives biographies of the 63 individuals.
[ Anne E. Monius, ''Love, Violence, and the Aesthetics of disgust: Saivas and Jains in Medieval South India'' in '']Journal of Indian Philosophy
A journal, from the Old French ''journal'' (meaning "daily"), may refer to:
*Bullet journal, a method of personal organization
*Diary, a record of personal secretive thoughts and as open book to personal therapy or used to feel connected to onesel ...
'', 2004, vol. 32, no 2–3, pp. 113–172
See also
*
Jainism
Jainism ( ), also known as Jain Dharma, is an Indian religions, Indian religion whose three main pillars are nonviolence (), asceticism (), and a rejection of all simplistic and one-sided views of truth and reality (). Jainism traces its s ...
*
Tirthankara
In Jainism, a ''Tirthankara'' (; ) is a saviour and supreme preacher of the ''Dharma (Jainism), dharma'' (righteous path). The word ''tirthankara'' signifies the founder of a ''Tirtha (Jainism), tirtha'', a fordable passage across ''Saṃsā ...
*
Jinasena
Notes
References
*
*
Jain texts
Indigenous Aryanism
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