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Arhat Pārsva and Dharanendra Nexus: An Introductory Estimation
buddha which implies the inherent concept of the ultimate liberated souls.
The other agmas that may still survive from Pārsva's sect are the Süryaprajnapti and the Candraprajñapti, the texts embodying archaic (and now un-valid) astronomical concepts of the Nirgranthas (plausibly developed further in the long lost Lokānuyoga of Arya Syāma (c. 1st cent. B.C.-A.D.). The extant Jambūdvīpaprajñapti (c. 3rd cent. A.D.), the Duīpasāgaraprajñapti(incorporated in the fivābhigama-sūtra, c. 2nd 3rd cent. A.D.), and the Sthānānga's cosmographical information represent their elaborated form. While the 14 Pūrva texts (meaning "anterior" in relation to the texts developed in Vardhamāna's sect), plausibly by their archaic style, concise size, and undeveloped disposition became obsolete and hence for long time lost: their basic content, however, seems to have been preserved and apparently pervade through the fabric of the highly developed and detailed agmas of the Vardhamāna's Church. For example, the extremely difficult exposition involving complex classifications, the aspects of nature as well as the intricate mechanism of the operation of karma noticeable in the Karmaprakrti, the Sataka, and the Sattari of sivašarmā (c. 5th cent. A.D.) in the Svetāmbara tradition and the Șatkhandāgama of the Yāpaniya tradition (now in Digambara fold, c. late 5th or early 6th cent.) probably were based on a primordial shorter Pūrva text such as the Karma-prakrti-prābhrta. The Nirgrantha biological classification of the living beings, notable for its scientific approach, also may have its roots in the Pārsvāpatya sect.
The surviving early works (and the later developed texts based on his original teachings) would lead us to believe that Arhat Pārsva was an ascetic-scientist, a systematic and methodical thinker, though speaking through an archaic mould of style. Arhat Nātaputta, by contrast, was an ascetic-philosopher who, as his original words and phrases (resembling the Upanişadic genre) preserved in the Acārānga I reveal, cared more for contemplating on ātman or 'Self' and its absolute purification from kasāya-passions for making it free from the karma-latancies so as to attain total salvation. Indeed, he was not so much concerned about the scholastic complexities. These latter began to be cared for and developed in highly elaborate form in his sect only from the post-Mauryan times onwards when the need was felt to know the content of the Pūrvas which may by then have been further developed in the post-Pārsva times in his sect whose adherents were progressively absorbed in the Church of Vardhamāna. In the ultimate analysis, it is very likely that, much that the Nirgrantha religion for the past many centuries stands for and preaches is based on the original teachings of Pārsva. Even the well known Nirgrantha methodology of examining the idea or object from four-fold viewpoints, of dravya, ksetra, kāla,
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