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gadha, with this change and they refused to hold any connection with the white-robed mooks; and consequently refused to acknowledge the collection of the sacred books mide by the Council of Pataliputra during their absence, declaring that for them the Purvas and Anges were lost. This was the main cause of the division of the Jains into 2 sections, the Digambaras, the naked ones, and the Svetambares, the white-robed ones. From this, we can see that the Svetambara Jains had their sacred books collected as far back as the end of the fourth century or the beginning of the third century B.O., that is to say about two centuries after Mahavira's death. But we are not to think from this that the Jainis had no sacred writings for two centuries after Mahavira's death. The very fact that their sacred writings were collected in about 300 B. C., shows that they must have existed for a long time, for such a long time that a need was felt to collect then and re-arrange them. We sue, therefore, no
10 Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat www.umaragyanbhandar.com