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the Cheda Suttas. Difference about authorship is noticeable even in the curnis and commentaries, and it may besaid that from a relative standpoint, both the claims may be taken as correct. This thus means that according to some Bhadrabahu, and according to others Visakhacārya is the author of Nisiha Sutra.
The date of compilation of Nisiha goes deep into antiqualty According to Dalsukh Malvania, whoever may be its author, Bhadrabahu or Visákhacarya, it was written 150 and 175 years of the liberation of Mahavira (7). Thus it may be said that the ideas contained in this text are as old as 2500 years, and the written text itself is as old as 2300 years.
Intentions behind the word 'nisiha'
The original word is nisiha. Some writers like the authors of the Digamvara texts Dhavala, Jaya Dhavala and Gommatasarą Tikā, and this is supported by the Western scholars like Weber (8) have read the word 'nisiha' as a form of the Sanskrit word niśihiya, niśihiya or nisehiya from which they deduce that it is a text on 'don't do this, don't do that'.
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According to the Tattvartha, Bhasya, Nisilha is the Sanskrit form of the word nisiha; and this is also the view taken by the writer of the nirvukti. According to the author of the Curni, nisitha means 'lack of sun-shine' (aprakāśa). According to Acarya Hemacandra, nisitha
means mid-night. To quote his expression:
nisithastvardharatra (9)
Thus according to one school, the name of this Sutra has a prohibitory significance, and according to another, it is something confidential which is not to be made public. Both the meanings are consistent with the subject-matter of the Nisitha Sutra. It is confidential as its reading is not permitted in public as per the accepted tradition, and it is prohibitory since it contains a list of things not to be perpetrated. But strictly speaking, the truly prohibitory Agama is Acaranga which states very categorically, 'A monk should not do this".
