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Arbat Parsva and Dharanendra Nexus
canon preserved in the Northern Church of Mahāvīra, because the ancient church of Parsva was later progressively absorbed in the former and the records and texts relating to its hagiology and history are long lost.
Nirgranthologists like Pt. Sukhlal Sanghvi and others were of the opinion that the Purva literature (so often mentioned in the canonical literature from the late Kuṣāṇa period onward) had belonged to Pārsva's tradition." At present, however, no texts of that category or specification exists. Today, insofar as our knowledge of Pārsva's teachings and traditions goes, we are dependent on the canonical literature of Mahāvīra's tradition, and, to a very small extent, on the Pali canon of the Buddhists as well.
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In the Ardhamägadhi canon, the Istbbästyäin (Rsibbaṣitani)" the Acaranga, the second book the Sutrakṛtānga," the Vyakhya-prajñapti," the Jñātādharma-katha,15 the Uttaradhyayanal and the Raja-Pradesiya," the Narakavalika," and the Sthānanga" reveal some significant references to Pārśva, his teachings as well as traditions. In the Uttaradhyayana," the Samavayanga," the Avasyaka-niryukti,22 the Višeṣāvasyaka-bhāṣya of Jinabhadra gaṇi kṣamāśramaņa," the Avasyaka-cūrṇī” and in the Paryuṣaṇā-kalpa2 as well as in the Mülacăra of the Yapaniya Church there are references to some distinctive (and hence distinguishing) features of the sects of Pārsva and Mahāvīra.
On Pärsva's life and the history of his times and of his sect, scanty material is traceable in these works; yet it is significant that they contain sufficient material pertaining to the ethical teachings and philosophical doctrines of Pärśva. They also firmly point toward the distinctness of Pārsva's sectarial tradition from that of Vardhamana.27
The Teachings of Pārsva in Isibbasiyāin
The earliest and authentic version of Parsva's philosophy and teachings is encountered in the Isibhästyäin (Rṣibhāṣitāni), a text compiled c. 1st cent. B.C. but often containing material that goes back to c. 4th century B.C., some even perhaps earlier. In a separate article,29 I had suggested that the Isibhāsiyāiñ, in terms of some of its content, is earlier than the whole of Pali as well as the Ardhamāgadhi canonical literature excepting of course the first book of the Acaränga. M.A. Dhaky opines that this text belongs to Pārsva's tradition. I, however, hold a different view. In my opinion the text, in earlier times, might have been composed in Pārsva's tradition as an independent text, but later on it was assimilated in the Prašnavyākaraṇasūtra which is considered to be one of the ten Dasa texts as well as the tenth work among
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