Agam 05 Ang 05 Study Of Bhagvati Vyakhya Prajnapti Sutra

Author(s): Suzuko Ohira
Publisher: Prakrit Text Society Ahmedabad

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but a part of the total amount of the lost texts in the long course of the canonical period. The Purva, as we will see in Chapter III, Section F-2, emerges in the mythological context involving the tirthankaras' roles in the cosmic church chronology of the Jainas.
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In view of all this, it is more plausible to assume that the Jainas probably counted the Drstivada as the 12th Ariga, by way of attributing to it the total contents of the lost texts by the fourth canonical stage; the contents of the lost texts relevant to the doctrines of jiva-ajiva then continued to be added in the fifth canonical stage. They did not exist any more, but their inclusion in the Anga class with the status, that they had been the important Jaina doctrinal texts but now lost, adds weight to the total contents of the Jaina Angas. And the Purva section, meaning a collection of previous texts, may denote a collection of the early lost texts in the Drstivada, which was provided therein possibly by the church authorities in the early fifth canonical stage, so that it would enable them to solve on an authoritative basis the then acute problems relevant to mokṣa and the role of tirthankaras, etc., on the theoretical level.