Jaina Philosophy Historical Outline

SR No.: 006569
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Narendra Nath Bhattacharya
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publisher's Pvt Ltd New Delhi
Publication Year: 1976
Total Pages: 242
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 15 MB

Page 39

18 Jain Philosophy in Historical Outline
were first compiled in fourteen texts, called the Pūrvas, meaning the earlier books which are lost. But the Svetāmbaras believe that the Pūrvas were incorporated in the now lost Ditthivāya, the twelfth Anga. The tradition of these Pūrva texts has obviously created a problem which cannot be very easily solved. Prof. Schübring? after a critical analysis of the existing Jain texts came to the conclusion that the so-called fourteen Pūrvas might have consisted of traditions handed down orally from teacher to pupil, that some part of this oral tradition might have been compiled by Sthulabhadra in the Pāțaliputra Council and that the council of Valabhi under Devardhi which took place sometime between the fifth and the sixth centuries Ad made use of the current oral traditions as well as such texts as might have been already reduced to writing. Texts like the Nandi and the Anuogadārā divide the substance of Jain teachings into Angapavitha and Anangapavițsha or Angabāhira. The roots of the latter are sometimes traced to the lost Pūrvas. Texts other than the Angas are sometimes placed in the Angabāhira group. The scriptures compiled by the Council of Valabhi (fifth-sixth centuries Ad) are generally known as Āgama or Siddhānta, divided into groups such as the Angas, Uvangas, Paiņņas, Cheyasuttas, Mūlasuttas, and two special texts known as Nandi and Anuogadārā. The language of the Svetāmbara canon is called Ardhamāgadhi Prakritor Jain Prakrit or even Ārsa Prakrit.2
The first Anga, Āyāra (Ācāra) deals with the rules of ascetic life. It is divided into two parts, the second part being of a later origin. The subjects in Chapters I-VI and VIII are Ahimsā, the avoidance of weakness and relapsing and endurance in hardships. The IXth or the last chapter offers a vivid sketch of Mahāvīra's early career. The second Anga is known as Sūyagada (wrongly Sanskritised as Sūtraksta) which deals with the heretical, i.e. non-Jain views, elaborate descriptions of hells and tortures therein, descriptions of forms of life and of their origin as “told in older ages,' discussions on guilt, accumulated either consciously or unconsciously, etc. The third Anga i.e.
1DJ, pp. 73ff.
e Canon and its history see Jacobi in the intro. to his ed. of KSB, pp. 14ff. and to the SBE, XXII and XLV; Kapadia, HCLJ; Winternitz, HIL, II, pp. 424-595.
Ed. Jacobi, 1882; Eng. tr. by the same SBE, XXII, 1884, the first sec. re-ed. Schübring 1910 in AKM, XII and tr. in WM, pp. 66-121.
*Eng. tr. by Jacobi in SBE, XLV; selected sections in Gr. by Schübring in WM; ed. P.L. Vaidya 1928; see Ghatage in IHQ, XII, pp. 270-81.