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DO ANCIENT JAIN BOOKS SHED ANY LIGHT ON ANCIENT HISTORY?
By Sri. L A. Phaltane B. A. LL. B. Pleader, Islampur (Satara).
Due to ignorance or to their fear of their sacred books being poluted by the touch of non-Jain hands, the Jains have upto now been very careful not to publish their ancient literary treasures or allow them to be touched ny foreigriers. According to my opinion if proper interpretations, consistent with the discoveries made by modern scholars of history, are put upon the contents of the Jain ancient hook it would le possibile to speak with som: certainty about the ancient dates of the tracinz. o! Jainisin. I must be borne in mind however that thr: Jain thinkers o! old never thought it proper to redator knowledge or learning to writing; that they generally avoided Sanskrit larguage for imparting religious ant srcular teaching: that they always encouraged the use of the then prakrit languages which were in vogue among the public in those days and that their knowledge came down to posterity by oral teaching from precentor to disciple.
This went on well until so long as the school of Jain thought continued to remain strong and continuous and well adjusted with the other elements of human life. But during some centuries before Christ, decadent tendencies began to appear in the Jain School and the Jain sages began to perceive that their knowledge was gradually disappearing. So about the beginning of the Christian era the great Jain Acharya Shri Umaswami composed a book named 'TatwarthaSutra' in Sanskrit in which all the Jain tenets are enumerated in condensed Sutra form. This, therefore is the first Sanskrit written work among the Jains acknowledged as true and complete by all the three important Jain Sects---Digambars. Swetambars and Sthanakwasis. After this book came into existence, numerous commentators arose who have written books of extensive commentaries which are available at present. But it must however be remarked that “Tatwartha-Sutra' is the main authoritative code of the principles of Jainism and the readers are requested to look to it primarily to
