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Learning Sanskrit through Research, Part 1: Why Read a Jain Commentary?
Hemacandra, Mahāvīra, and the Art of Slow Translation
07/30/2026
This essay is the first in a series highlighting collaborative translation and research conducted in the Advanced Sanskrit program at the Center for South Asian Languages (CSAL) at Arihanta Institute. In the Sanskrit course series, students move beyond learning Sanskrit grammar in isolation and begin working with primary sources in the way professional scholars do: reading texts closely, comparing translations, consulting commentaries, debating grammatical possibilities, and asking how language shapes philosophical interpretation. Our current project is a translation of Hemacandra’s Yogaśāstra together with the author’s own Svopajñavṛtti, an auto-commentary in which Hemacandra explains and expands upon his own work.
Students often begin such a project with the understandable assumption that translation consists primarily of identifying Sanskrit words, consulting dictionaries, and arranging the results into readable English. Dictionaries and grammatical analysis are, of course, indispensable, but our work on the opening verse of the Yogaśāstra quickly demonstrated that this picture is incomplete. What initially appeared to be a relatively straightforward verse occupied several class meetings because nearly every significant word raised larger questions about grammar, doctrine, literary convention, and the technical vocabulary of Jain philosophy. An epithet such as Mahāvīra, for example, is not simply a name to be translated and passed over. In Hemacandra’s own explanation, it becomes the starting point for discussions of etymology, karma, austerity, the Jina’s birth narrative, and the religious significance of heroic power. As the class discovered, translating a single verse also meant learning how to read within an entire intellectual tradition.
That experience illustrates one of the greatest values of commentarial literature. Hemacandra, the great twelfth-century Jain polymath of Gujarat, did not simply compose the Yogaśāstra and leave later generations to determine its meaning for themselves. He also wrote the Svopajñavṛtti, an auto-commentary, that is, a commentary on his own root text. There he does far more than paraphrase his verses. He identifies the grammatical features that deserve attention, explains the doctrinal assumptions that underlie seemingly ordinary expressions, and demonstrates how a short verse of praise can simultaneously function as theology, philosophy, and instruction in Jain yoga. A commentary, therefore, does not merely explain a text after the fact. It preserves a disciplined way of reading.
This first essay examines the opening verse of the Yogaśāstra and Hemacandra’s commentary upon it. Along the way, I hope readers will gain not only a deeper appreciation of one of medieval India’s greatest scholars, but also a clearer sense of what advanced Sanskrit study can look like when grammar, philology, and philosophy are brought together in the collaborative work of translation.
Reading Beyond the Translation
The Yogaśāstra opens with a short verse of praise addressed to Mahāvīra:
The Yogaśāstra opens with a short verse of praise addressed to Mahāvīra:
प्रणम्य सिद्धाद्भुतयोगसम्पदे श्रीवीरनाथाय विमुक्तिशालिने ।
स्वयोगशास्त्रार्थविशेषनिर्णयो भव्यावबोधाय मया विधास्यते ॥१॥
स्वयोगशास्त्रार्थविशेषनिर्णयो भव्यावबोधाय मया विधास्यते ॥१॥
YŚ 1.1:[1]praṇamya siddhādbhuta-yoga-sampade śrī-vīra-nāthāya vimukti-śāline |
sva-yogaśāstrārtha-viśeṣa-nirṇayo bhavyāvabodhāya mayā vidhāsyate ||1||
sva-yogaśāstrārtha-viśeṣa-nirṇayo bhavyāvabodhāya mayā vidhāsyate ||1||
“Having bowed to Śrī Vīranātha (Mahāvīra),
endowed with wondrous perfections of yoga and replete with liberation,
I shall set forth a special determination of the meaning of my Yogaśāstra
for the awakening of spiritually receptive beings.”
(YŚ 1.1)
endowed with wondrous perfections of yoga and replete with liberation,
I shall set forth a special determination of the meaning of my Yogaśāstra
for the awakening of spiritually receptive beings.”
(YŚ 1.1)
If we possessed only this verse, we could produce a reasonably accurate translation with the aid of a grammar and dictionary. We would recognize that Hemacandra begins with a conventional invocation, that he honors Mahāvīra before introducing his subject, and that he intends to explain the meaning of his own treatise. From a purely linguistic perspective, that translation would not be wrong.
Yet Hemacandra’s own commentary immediately demonstrates how much such a translation leaves unsaid. Before discussing yoga at all, he pauses over the title Mahāvīra, explaining why this particular epithet is appropriate, recounting the traditional narrative surrounding the Jina’s naming, and showing how the remaining honorifics in the verse express what he identifies as the four atiśayas,[2] or extraordinary excellences, of the Blessed One (YŚSV 1.1, pp. 3–4). In other words, the commentary is not simply supplying additional information. It is identifying the questions that a learned reader ought to ask when encountering the verse.
This is an important methodological point. Modern readers often approach commentaries as repositories of doctrinal information, but they may be even more valuable as evidence of historical reading practices. Every explanation reveals an assumption about the intended audience. Why explain the name Mahāvīra rather than another epithet? Why organize the remaining honorifics around four excellences? Why pause to distinguish the literal meaning of “protector” from its specifically soteriological significance? These are not arbitrary digressions. They tell us what Hemacandra believed required interpretation and what he expected his readers either already knew or needed to learn.
For students of Sanskrit, this is one of the most rewarding aspects of working with commentarial literature. The commentary does not simply provide answers. It models a way of reading in which grammar, vocabulary, religious tradition, and philosophical reflection continually inform one another. Learning to translate, therefore, also means learning to recognize which questions the text itself invites us to ask.
Grammar as Theology
One of the first surprises awaiting students in this project is that grammatical analysis and theological interpretation are rarely separate activities. It is tempting to think of grammar as the preliminary work that must be completed before interpretation begins. Medieval Sanskrit commentators generally assume the opposite. Grammar is itself one of the principal means by which interpretation takes place.
One of the first surprises awaiting students in this project is that grammatical analysis and theological interpretation are rarely separate activities. It is tempting to think of grammar as the preliminary work that must be completed before interpretation begins. Medieval Sanskrit commentators generally assume the opposite. Grammar is itself one of the principal means by which interpretation takes place.
A brief example from Hemacandra’s commentary illustrates the point. Rather than moving immediately to the philosophical content of the verse, he first pauses over the word Mahāvīra. He observes that this is the principal substantive (viśeṣya-padam) to which the remaining honorifics are attached (YŚSV 1.1, p. 3). From there he turns to its etymology:
viśeṣeṇa īrayati kṣipati karmāṇīti vīraḥ |
“He is called a hero (vīra) because he especially drives away and casts off karmas.”
(YŚSV 1.1, p. 3)
(YŚSV 1.1, p. 3)
To a modern reader, this may seem like a simple lexical note. In reality, it does considerably more. Hemacandra is not merely defining the word vīra; he is offering an interpretation of the title that connects language with one of the central doctrines of Jainism. The “hero” is heroic not because of military prowess or political authority, but because he has overcome karmic bondage through ascetic discipline. A grammatical and etymological observation thus becomes a concise theological argument.
The commentary proceeds in much the same way with the remaining honorifics in the verse. Rather than treating them as a collection of poetic synonyms, Hemacandra explains that each points toward one of the four atiśayas, or extraordinary excellences, of the Jina: freedom from the passions, universal worship, perfect knowledge, and liberating speech (YŚSV 1.1, pp. 3–4). Once again, the commentary does not simply add information to the verse. It explains why these particular words were chosen and how they function together as a carefully constructed statement of Jain religious ideals.
For students, this is an important lesson in the practice of philology. Translation is not completed when each Sanskrit word has been assigned an English equivalent. It also requires asking why an author selected one expression rather than another, what associations that expression would have carried for its original audience, and how a commentator understood its place within the larger argument of the work. Medieval commentators preserve precisely this chain of reasoning. They make explicit the interpretive steps that otherwise remain invisible.
As our translation project continued, this process became even more striking. Hemacandra repeatedly describes the Jina using titles such as Bhagavān, Parameṣṭhin, Vedhas, and Puruṣa, all of which had long and complex histories in other Sanskrit religious traditions. He does not avoid this shared vocabulary. Instead, he adopts it and gives it distinctively Jain interpretations. Those choices open broader questions about the shared intellectual world of medieval Sanskrit scholarship, and they will form the subject of the next essay in this series.
What Medieval Commentaries Preserve
As our class continued through the opening pages of the Yogaśāstra-Svopajñavṛtti, we gradually realized that the commentary preserved far more than explanations of difficult words. It preserved an entire method of reading. If the root text alone had survived, we could still have translated it with reasonable confidence, but much of the intellectual world that surrounded it would have disappeared.
As our class continued through the opening pages of the Yogaśāstra-Svopajñavṛtti, we gradually realized that the commentary preserved far more than explanations of difficult words. It preserved an entire method of reading. If the root text alone had survived, we could still have translated it with reasonable confidence, but much of the intellectual world that surrounded it would have disappeared.
Consider what would have been lost from the opening verse alone. Without Hemacandra’s commentary, we would not have known why the title Mahāvīra deserved extended discussion, why the remaining honorifics were interpreted as expressing the four atiśayas, or why the seemingly ordinary description of the Jina as a “protector” required careful qualification. Hemacandra insisted that the Jina’s protective role was not simply analogous to the protective instincts found throughout the natural world. Tigers protect their cubs, he observed, but the Jina protects through the gift of fearlessness and through teaching the Dharma in whatever language living beings are able to understand (YŚSV 1.1, pp. 3–4). That distinction transformed what could have remained a conventional epithet into a carefully articulated theological claim.
One passage from the commentary particularly impressed the students and me because it illustrated how naturally Hemacandra moved between grammar, narrative, and doctrine. Explaining the title Mahāvīra, he did not stop with an etymology. He recounted the traditional account of the Jina’s naming and then concluded:
tat punar anādi-bhava-prarūḍha-prauḍha-karma-samunmūlana-balena yathārthīkṛtaṃ ca bhagavatā |
“And that [name] was made true by the Blessed One through the power of uprooting the mighty karmas that had become firmly established through beginningless existence.”
(YŚSV 1.1, p. 3)
(YŚSV 1.1, p. 3)
The name, in other words, was not merely inherited from tradition. According to Hemacandra, Mahāvīra truly became “the Great Hero” because he accomplished what the name itself signified. Translation alone could have communicated the lexical meaning of the title, but only the commentary explained why that title carried theological weight.
Experiences like these also shaped the editorial philosophy behind our own translation. Throughout the project we chose to include grammatical analysis, morphological parsing, translation, philological observations, and occasional doctrinal notes alongside the English rendering of the Sanskrit. This was not because every reader would require every level of annotation. Rather, it reflected the recognition that readers approach texts with different questions. Some wished to understand the Sanskrit grammar. Others were interested in Jain philosophy, while still others wanted to compare Hemacandra’s language with other Sanskrit traditions. The commentary reminded us that a good scholarly edition should make room for all of these forms of inquiry.
By the end of this portion of the course, many students had begun to see commentaries in a different light. They were no longer simply reference works consulted when a passage proved difficult. They functioned more like the written record of a classroom, preserving not only conclusions but also habits of thought. They revealed which questions an accomplished teacher expected students to ask, which misunderstandings required correction, and which connections between grammar, philosophy, and religious practice were considered essential. In that sense, the Svopajñavṛtti preserved not only Hemacandra’s interpretation of the Yogaśāstra, but also something of how Sanskrit scholarship itself was taught.
Conclusion: The Value of Slow Reading
When our class first began working through the opening verse of the Yogaśāstra, none of us expected that a single stanza and its commentary would occupy several days of sustained discussion. What initially appeared to be a brief devotional invocation gradually became an exploration of Sanskrit grammar, Jain theology, intellectual history, philology, and the interpretive practices of one of medieval India’s greatest scholars. The difficulty did not lie in the complexity of the Sanskrit alone. Rather, it arose from the realization that understanding required much more than producing an accurate English translation.
When our class first began working through the opening verse of the Yogaśāstra, none of us expected that a single stanza and its commentary would occupy several days of sustained discussion. What initially appeared to be a brief devotional invocation gradually became an exploration of Sanskrit grammar, Jain theology, intellectual history, philology, and the interpretive practices of one of medieval India’s greatest scholars. The difficulty did not lie in the complexity of the Sanskrit alone. Rather, it arose from the realization that understanding required much more than producing an accurate English translation.
That experience ultimately became one of the most valuable lessons of the project. Great Sanskrit texts reward patient reading. Dictionaries, searchable editions, digital manuscript collections, and AI-assisted translation have transformed the work of philologists, making texts more accessible than ever before. Throughout this course, we regularly benefited from these resources ourselves. Yet no tool can determine why a particular word was chosen, what assumptions an author expected readers to bring to a passage, or how a medieval commentator understood the relationship between grammar, philosophy, and religious practice. Those are questions that emerge only through sustained engagement with the text itself.
For our students at CSAL, the Yogaśāstra therefore became much more than an advanced Sanskrit reading exercise. It became an opportunity to participate in the same interpretive process that Hemacandra invited nearly nine centuries ago. By reading the root text together with the Svopajñavṛtti, students were not simply translating Sanskrit. They were learning how a great Jain scholar constructed arguments, anticipated questions, and guided readers from language to philosophy.
The opening verse and its commentary also introduced a question that repeatedly arose during our discussions and eventually grew into a research project of its own. Hemacandra frequently described the Jina using titles that Sanskrit readers would already have associated with other religious traditions. Why would a Jain author deliberately employ terms such as Bhagavān, Parameṣṭhin, Vedhas, and Puruṣa, words that already possessed long and influential histories in Hindu literature? Were these simply shared elements of Sanskrit vocabulary, or was Hemacandra making a more deliberate theological statement?
Those questions led naturally into the next stage of our work. In the second essay, we will examine how Hemacandra adopted familiar Sanskrit religious language and reshaped it within a distinctly Jain framework, revealing a sophisticated engagement with the broader intellectual culture of medieval India.
Citation
Hemacandra. Yogaśāstra, with Svopajñavṛtti. Edited by Muni Jambūvijaya, with the assistance of Muni Dharmacandravijaya, Puṇḍarīkaratnavijaya, Dharmaghoṣavijaya, Mahāvidehavijaya, and Namaskāravijaya. 1st part (Prathama–Dvitīya Prakāśa). Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass; Ahmedabad: Śrī Siddhibhuvana-Manohara Jain Trust; Bhavnagar: Śrī Jain Ātmānanda Sabhā, n.d.
[1] Citations distinguish between the root text and Hemacandra’s auto-commentary. YŚ 1.1 refers to Yogaśāstra, Chapter 1, Verse 1. YŚSV 1.1.12 refers to the Yogaśāstra-Svopajñavṛtti, Chapter 1, commentary on Yogaśāstra 1.1, commentary verse 12. Introductory prose preceding numbered commentary verses is cited as YŚSV 1.1 (introductory prose).
[2] The term atiśaya in Sanskrit generally means “excellence, superiority, extraordinary quality.” In Jain usage it has two important contexts. First, it denotes the extraordinary attributes of a Tīrthaṅkara: the Arhat is described as possessing four atiśayas—(1) freedom from passions and karmic downfall (āpāyāpagama-atiśaya), (2) universal worship (pūjā-atiśaya), (3) omniscience (jñāna-atiśaya), and (4) universally intelligible speech (vacana-atiśaya). Second, the word also appears in pilgrimage discourse as kṣetra-atiśayas, the miraculous wonders or extraordinary features of sacred places. In the Yogaśāstra commentary, Hemacandra is referring specifically to the first sense: the four classic atiśayas of the Arhat, each marked in the opening verse by a different epithet. These four are attested earlier in the tradition, for example in the Āvaśyaka-niryukti (by Bhadrabāhu II, ca. 5th century CE) and its commentaries, where they serve to define the Arhat’s uniqueness. By invoking them here, Hemacandra is aligning his interpretation with a long-standing doctrinal framework while systematizing it around the opening verse of his Yogaśāstra.
The Best Way to Understand Sanskrit Is to Read It.
Every insight in this essay emerged from students reading the text for themselves—asking questions, debating interpretations, and discovering how grammar, philosophy, and history converge on the page.
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