The Yogaśāstra of Hemacandra : a twelfth century handbook on Śvetāmbara Jainism
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The Yogaśāstra of Hemacandra : a twelfth century handbook on Śvetāmbara Jainism
（Harvard oriental series, v. 60）
Dept. of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Harvard University , Distributed by Harvard University Press, 2002
Available at 13 libraries
Note
Introduction in English, main text in romanized Sanskrit with parallel English translation
Bibliography: p. 198-223
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
The Yogasastra and its voluminous auto-commentary, the Svopajnavrtti, is the most comprehensive treatise on Svetambara Jainism. Written in the twelfth century by the polymath Hemacandra, it was instrumental in the survival and growth of Jainism in India as well as in the spreading of Sanskrit culture within Jaina circles. Its influence extended far beyond confessional and geographical borders and it came to serve as a handbook for the Jain community in Gujarat and overseas.
It is a systematic presentation of a set of ideas and practices originally belonging to the Svetambara canonical scriptures and traditions molded into a coherent whole with the help of a long row of scholastic thinkers. Hemacandra integrates innovations of his own as well as non-Jain elements of pan-Indian and Saiva provenance, attesting to a strong Tantric influence on medieval Jainism. Some of these elements came to be perpetually included within Svetambara orthopraxy and orthodoxy due to the normative status acquired by the Yogasastra.
The present translation is the first of its kind in a Western language.
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