Early Jainism

SR No.: 001520
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: K K Dixit
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad
Publication Year: 1978
Total Pages: 120
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Agam, Canon, & Philosophy
File Size: 7 MB

Page 43

CHAPTER III
SUTRAKRTĀNGA II-A HISTORICAL EVALUATION
Sūtrakrtāńga II is proved to be a relatively late text on the basis of the following three criteria :
(i) Its being overwhelmingly a prose composition, (ii) Its touching upon the problem of a pious householder's duties. (iii) Its frequent employment of technical concepts. Let these be considered one by one.
In the history of Jaina canon the earliest age - the age of Acārānga I, Sūtrakytānga I, Uttarādhyayana, Daśavaiālika - can perhaps be called an age of poetic composition, the subsequent age, an age of prose-composition. True, in Ācārānga I there occurs a good amount of prose-composition but it is mostly of the form of commendation on verse-passages (while the remaining three texts of the age contain no prose-part worth the name); on the contrary, in the texts written in the age of prose-composition versepassages occur extremely seldom and in most cases these passages are composed in Arya --which again is an indication of their relatively late character). However, the mere fact that a canonical text is written in prose would not enable one to make out as to how late it actually is, for the 'age of prose-composition' covers a pretty long period. For example, Sūtrakrtānga II is overwhelmingly a prose-composition, only two of its chapters being in verse (chapter V in Anuşçubh, chapter VI in Tristubh): but this only means that it does not belong to the earlier age witnessed by Jaina canon.
I
The canonical texts belonging to the earliest age exhibit no acquaintance with the problem of a pious householder's duties, their chief preoccupation being what a monk has or has not to do. Even Sūtrakrtānga II contains no systematic exposition of a pious householder's duties, but in two conte. xts it comes out with assertions which definitely prove that by the time of its composition the concept of a pious householder has emerged on the thought-horizon of the Jaina theoreticians. Thus the chief subject-matter of chapter VII is an opponent taking exception to the standard formulation of a particular vow taken by a pious householder -viz, the vow to desist from causing injury to the mobile type of living beings, It being impossible