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Was geschieht mit Wörtern auf formaler und semantischer Ebene, wenn sie im Begriff sind aus der Sprache zu verschwinden? Und wie werden sie am Leben erhalten? Das sind die zwei Leitfragen, auf welche sich vorliegende Arbeit stützt. Es werden zwei schwedische Konjunktionen untersucht, die einer entsprechenden Korpusanalyse nach als vom Aussterben be...
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... 7 The bhaṭṭāraka was a class of Digambara scholar-monks entrusted with the care of the tradition's temples and libraries. For a study of the shifts in their influence in the early modern period, see Detige (2014). 8 I will not here enter into the debates, following Pollock (2006), surrounding the socio-historical dimensions of the process of vernacularisation in South Asia. ...
Jain narrative literature in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and Apabhraṃśa is rightly recognised as one of South Asia’s great cultural heritages and a vital source of material for insight into premodern Jain teachings, practices, and everyday life. However, Jain studies is yet to fully engage with the rich archive of Jain narrative literature in Brajbhāṣā, and a wealth of untapped manuscript material is waiting to be explored. In this article, I argue that by going beyond the too-broad moniker of “Jain Hindī literature” to recognise Jain narrative literature in Brajbhāṣā as a distinct category, we may better understand the Jains of early modern North India as partakers of a wider literary and religious culture. More particularly, by comparing the form and religious outlook of Rāmcand Bālak’s Sītācarit, a seventeenth-century Rāmāyaṇa treatment, with the works of the more well-known Banārsīdās, we see that even amongst the Jains who used Brajbhāṣā, considerable variety of outlooks and approaches existed.
... Manuscripts were brought over from the pilgrimage site Atiśaya Kṣetra Mahāvīrajī, the seat of the last Dillī-Jayapuraśākhā bhaṭṭāraka Candrakīrti (died 1968/9 CE), and added to the collection. In 1988, the collection and research institute shifted to the Digambara Jaina Nasiyāṃ Bhaṭṭārakajī at Narayan Singh Circle (Detige, 2014), where the Apabhraṃśa Sāhitya Akādamī was established, a centre of research and teaching on Apabhraṃśa, Prakrit, and Jainism directed by Kamalacanda Sogāṇī. For several years, plans have been underway for a new building with improved facilities a few miles further South in Mālavīya Nagara, and the relocation should be underway at the time of this publication. ...
As recent research on the former bhaṭṭāraka lineages of Western and Central India has shown, the early modern Digambara tradition, rather than constituting a distinct, and defective, ‘bhaṭṭāraka era’, shows much similarity to contemporary Digambara Jainism. Bhaṭṭārakas were regarded and venerated as ideal renouncers. Many of their practices accorded to those of today’s Digambara munis, and the bhaṭṭāraka saṅghas also featured renouncers of the muni and ācārya ranks, long thought to have abruptly become obsolete in the late medieval period. This new understanding of early modern Digambara Jainism is corroborated by the present article, which deals with early modern bhaṭṭāraka consecration rituals (paṭṭābhiṣeka, dīkṣā). The study is mainly based on two genres of sources. Sanskrit bhaṭṭāraka consecration manuals (dīkṣā-vidhi, pada-sthāpanā-vidhi), firstly, outline the preparations, the ritual proceedings, and the festivities to be held. Some vernacular songs of praise (gīta, etc.) of individual bhaṭṭārakas, secondly, focus specifically on their consecrations. These song compositions confirm many of the of the manuals’ prescriptions, while also adding elements not attested in the latter. Read in conjunction, both sources allow a relatively detailed understanding of early modern bhaṭṭāraka consecrations, show they closely resembled contemporary Digambara initiations, and confirm the former venerability of early modern bhaṭṭārakas in their own times.
This article explores the different modes of song in the Sītācarit, a seventeenth-century Brajbhāṣā telling of the Jain Rāmāyaṇa, and suggests a general understanding of the relationship between song and narrative that sees the songs as constituting an added narrative layer. It notes how the modes of song in the Sītācarit evoke different performative settings and aesthetic influences, ranging from the educational to the courtly, and suggests how the intertwining of narrative and song lets us glimpse the poetics of devotion through the lens of the circulation of literary and devotional trends in early modern North India.
