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JAIN HISTORY LITERATURE and SECTS
E02 - Jain Scriptures and Literature
02 Vächana (Recensions - Critical revision of Agam) In order to preserve Jain scriptures and other Jain literature, Jain Ächäryas in the past had three major conferences known as three recensions of the Jain literature. Whenever the Acharyas realized that the Shrutas of oral tradition were waning and that there was disorderliness into it, they had recensions and established order in it. No documentation occurred during the first recension but during the second and third conferences, most of the scriptures, commentaries, and other works were documented. Recension Place
Time 01 Patliputra Recension
@320 BC Mathura and Vallabhi Recensions @380 AD 03 Vallabhi Recension
@520 AD
02
First Vächanä in Patliputra (First Recension):
About 160 years after the Lord's nirvana, when Bhadrabähu-swami was the head of the religious order and the Nanda dynasty was ruling over Magadha region; Patliputra, the capital city, became the center of learning and knowledge. At that time, there occurred twelve years of famine (around 350 BC). During that period of shortage and scarcity, it was hard for Jain monks to observe the code of conduct of religion. Bhadrabähu-swämi therefore decided to migrate to the south along with many followers. Under such circumstances they could not preserve the entire canonical literature. After the famine, a convention was called at Patliputra under the leadership of Acharya Sthulibhadra. The Jain monks asked one another what they could recollect, thus collecting eleven of the twelve Angas. However, they found that nobody recollected the entire Drashtiväda, the twelfth Anga. At that time, Acharya Bhadrabahu alone possessed the knowledge of the Drashtiväda, but he had chosen a yogic path of a special sort and was in Nepal. Therefore, the Jain community requested Acharya Sthulibhadra and many other monks to go to Bhadrabähu to learn the text of the Drashtiväda from him. The Drashtiväda, being the twelfth Anga Agam book, contained fourteen Purva-sutras. Of those monks, Sthulibhadra alone was successful in acquiring the knowledge of it. However, after acquiring the knowledge of ten Purvas, he misused the miraculous power earned through this. When Bhadrabahu came to know this, he stopped giving lessons to Sthulibhadra. After beseeching by Sthulibhadra and the Sangha, Bhadrabahu agreed to teach him only the text of remaining four Purvas, but forbid Sthulibhadra to teach these four Purvas to others. As a consequence of this, there existed the knowledge of 14 Purvas up to Sthulibhadra. After his death, the Order possessed the knowledge of eleven Angas and only ten Purvas. Sthulibhadra's death occurred 215 years after Bhagawan Mahävir's Nirvana. In short, of the twelve Angas (Anga-pravishtha) composed by the Ganadhars, eleven Angas bereft of the four Purvas were recovered by the Order assembled at the first council of the Agams. The version so prepared was not found acceptable to most of those who had migrated to the south. They considered the version unauthentic and contended that the original Agams had gotten
lost. This was the first major schism among the followers of Lord Mahävir. Second Vächanä in Vallabhipur and Mathura (Second Recension):
Even after the Patliputra convention, the Agams remained unwritten and continued to be passed on orally from preceptor to pupil. Memorizing must have taken its own toll. Moreover with the fall of the Mauryan dynasty in 150 B.C., Patliputra ceased to be the main center of Jainism, because the Mitra dynasty that took over was not favorably inclined to it. There was therefore a large-scale migration of Jain monks and laymen towards Udaygiri Near present Bhuvaneshwar in the southeast and towards Mathura in the west. All these factors contributed once again to variations in the version of Agam Sutras. After a twelve-year-long famine about 830 years after Bhagawan Mahävir's Nirvana, the monks assembled in Mathura under the leadership of Arya Skandil collected and arranged the Kälik Shruta on the basis of what they could recall and recite. Since this Vächana was done in Mathura, it is called Mathuri Vächanä..
Compendium of Jainism - 2015
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