Canonical Literature Of Jainas

SR No.: 022774
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: H R Kapadia
Publisher: Hindi Granth Karyalay
Publication Year: 1941
Total Pages: 286
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 26 MB

Page 234

VII) COMPARISON AND EVALUATION
221 Parallels in non-Jaina Literatura—Just as the word tripitaka and its Pāli equivalent occur in the Bauddha literature so do the word gaạipițaka and its Prākṣta equivalent ganipidaga in the Jaina literature. This ganipidaga is twelve-fold inasmuch as it consists of 12 Angas. Out of them Āyāra may be compared with the Vinayapitaka of the Bauddhas, and Thāna and Samavāya, with their Anguttaranikāya. Further, the stories pertaining to the fructification of merit and demerit which are embodied in Vivăgasuya may be compared with Avadānašataka and Karmaśataka of the Bauddhas. Similarly the Paësi-Kesi dialogue occurring in Rāyapaseniya has a parallel in the Pāyāsisutta of the Dighanikāya Nr. 23. In this connection Prof. Winternitz says in The Jainaus. in the Ilis. of Ind. Lit. (p. 147):
"The original may in this case be the Jaina dialogue, but it is also possible that both have to be derived from an older Itihāsa-sanvāda, forming part of the ancient ascetic literature.”I
All the Cheyasuttas such as Nisīha etc., have almost the same contents as we meet with under the name of vinaya in the Bauddha literature. Just as Pajjosaņākappa deals with the life of Lord Mahāvīra, so does Lalitavistara, a Bauddha work so far as the life of Lord Buddha is concerned. The famous saying of King Janaka of Mithilā (after he had adopted asceticism ) viz. "How boundless is my wealth as I possess nothing ! When Mithilā is on fire, nothing that is mine will be burnt, occurring in the Mahābhārata? (XII, 1 Prof. Winternitz in The Jainas in the His. of Ind. Lit. (p. 145, fn.) says:
"If I am not mistaken, E. Leumann (2. D. M. G. 48, 1894, p. 65 ff.) was the first to speak of a 'Parivrājaka Literature', though not quite in the same sense as I use the term 'Ascetic Litereture'. See my lecture on 'Ascetic Literature of Ancient India' in Some problems of Indian Literature (Calcutta
University Press, 1925), p. 21 ff.” 2 "In many cases rerses and Itihāsa-samvādas of the Mahābhārata have
actually been traced in Pali Gāthās, and in Jaina books. A very remarkable example of the latter is the fine dialogue between a father and his son in the Mahābhārata, XII, 175 (repeated XII, 277), which occurs also-with variants in the Mārkandeya-Purāņa, X ff., in the Buddhist Jātaka (Nr. 509 in Fausbüll's edition), and again in the Uttarajjhayaņasutta (Adhy, XIV) of the Jainas.”—The Jainas in the His, of Ind. Lit. (p. 146)