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remaining Angas, etc.-which means that they are two different literatures.
The fact that the following gātha of Catuḥsaraṇaprakirņaka mentions caturdaśapūrvadhara side by side with dvādaśangadhara proves Pūrvas to be different from Angas :
caudasa-dasa-navapuvvi duvālasikkårasamgino je a
jinakappahalamdia pariharavisuddhisāhū ya ||33|| While explaining bhāṣā, vibhasa, vārtika etc., the different types of commentary or exposition, Āvaśyakacūrņi says that vibhāṣā means that type of commentary or exposition which explains the words constituting the sūtra in various ways while vārtika means that type of commentary or exposition which explains the same in all the possible ways, and further that Caturdaśapūrvī is capable of the former while only kevali is capable of the latter.16
Gautama, a ganadhara of Lord Mahāvīra, is considered to be the knower of fourteen Pūrvas (caturdaśapūrvi). But all other disciples of Lord Mahāvīra, excepting ganadharas, are seldom referred to as knowers of fourteen Pürras. Almost all of them are mentioned as knowers of eleven Angas (sāmãiyamaiyain ekkārasa angaim).17 In contrast to this, the disciples of Tīrthankaras prior to Lord Mahāvīra are referred to as knowers of fourteen Purvas. From this we can possibly infer that only that śruta which existed before the advent of Lord Mahāvīra has been given the name 'Pūrva'. As we have already seen, the Angas are derived from the Purvas. Thus the Pūrva literature served as the basis of the Anga literature, though it was different from and independent of the Anga interature. And at sometime it was included in the twelfth Anga under the head of Pūrvagata'. This is the right view.
One thing is noteworthy that there is an old belief, as previously referred to, that the Angas were composed on the basis of Pūrvas for the benefit of women, etc. And wherever the topic of the study by nuns occurs, we are given, in connection with the study by the nuns either of the times of Lord Mahāvīra or of the times earlier than Lord Mahāvīra, the same information that they studied eleven Angas; but none of them is reported to have studied Pūrvas. This fact corroborates the above-mentioned old belief. In the Jñātā. (sū. 129) we are told that Draupadi studied eleven Angas while Pāndavas studied fourteen Pūrvas. Āryā Padmāyati, a disciple of Aristanemi, is also reported to have studied eleven
16. Avasyakacūrni, folio 115 (gātha 35) 17. Bhagavati Sū. 93, 382, 385, 418; Vipākasutra 33, Jñātā. Sū. 28, 105; Anuttaro
3 etc.
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