Jainism in North India

SR No.: 011067
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Chimanlal J Shah
Publisher: Longmans Green and Compny London
Publication Year: 1932
Total Pages: 66
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 3 MB

Page 274

J.VIXI LITERATURE OF THE NORTH l'ir as and the digas. "They hold the twelve Angas-the DuadaKangi-in as high esteem as the Svetambaras."1 Now what remains to be confirmed is that the original Siddhanta was not lost for ever. The epigraphic cudence that we can produce for this is that of the Jathura inscriptions. As we have seen, the number of Kulas and Sakhas appearing in thcsc records can very well be identified with those appearing in the writings wluch arc proclaimed by the Diganbaras to be late and worthless works, although they seem to make use of them to a certain extent."! Turthermore, the Wahavira lcgend is also reproduccd in the Mathura sculptures as it appears in our texts, and the Jaina monks are mentioned with the title Vocala e lecturer or prencher. This latter fact, according to Dr Wintcrnitz, gives cpigraphical cvidence to the fact that there must have existed the holy scriptures of the Jainas even in the beginning of the Christian cra. Moreover, as seen before, thic fact that as an alternative the Jrina monks could go about naked is also found in the Sretambara texts. This shows they did not darc to makc arbitrary changes in the text, but handed them down as truc as possible. Finally, it is a great proof for the authenticity of the Jaina tradition that in many remarkable details it exactly corresponds with the Buddhistic tradition. The total abscence in the most important parts of the canon of any ideas belonging to Greek astronomy, according to some scholars supplies a decisive proof of the suggestion that the texts must have remained almost unaltered at least since the very first century of our cra. "Morcover, the mctrical parts of tic Jamna canon suggested to such an acutc obscrver and such an expert on Hindu metrics as Jacobi a terminus a quo; for as a general i ule all the metres used by the Jainas in their canonical scriptures, whether Vaitaliya, Tristubh or Arvi. show types that are clearly more ! C Buhler, IA1,P 29 "Home er, we are told by the Sietimbans as well as the Dugimiyras, that besides the Augas there existed other and probably older works, alled Pinas, of which there icre originally fourteen"-Jacobi, op al, Int, p lus Charpentier, op cil, Int, p 11 Cf Buhler, op and local 1 e .-Buhler, CI, 1, Ins No III, p. 382 Cf. tond, Ins Yos. I, VII, ctc , pp 383-980 Cf Wintcritt, op and loc cit SC Charpentier, op cit, Int, 25 "But an argument of more weight is the fact that in the Siddhanta we find no traces of Greek astronomy In fact thc Jamna astronomy is a system of incredible absurdity, wluch would bric been impossible if its author had Had the last knowledge of the Grech Science As the latter appears to have been intrcluced in Indin nbout the third or the fourth century AD, It follows that the sacred books of the Joins were composed before that tinic"-Jacobi, op cil, Int, P xl 223