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A BRIEF SURVEY OF JAINA PRAKRIT AND SANSKRIT LITERATURE (with century-wise critical observations)
INTRODUCTION:
History is like a gorgeous chandelier studded with thousands of transparent glittering prisms. The viewpoints of researchers are sparkling rays of light which penetrate each prism and exhibit beautiful, colourful spectrums. Such a spectrum of Jaina literature is presented in this brief survey of Jaina Prakrit and Sanskrit literature.
1. Purpose of the Survey:
Histories of Jaina literature are written in various manners. 'Jaina Sāhitya Ka BỊhad Itihāsa' is a joint effort of many eminent scholars and published by Pārsvanātha Vidyāśrama Sodha Saṁsthāna in seven big volumes. This is the biggest effort ever done by Jaina scholars in the late half of twentieth century. These volumes are the main sourcebooks of providing necessary data for the present brief survey. Dr. Hiralal Jain, Kailashchandra Shastri, Nemichandra Shastri, Jagdishcandra Jain, Harivamsharay Kochad, H.R.Kapdiya, Nathuram Premi and many others have presented their histories of Jaina literature from different viewpoints. All these histories are written in Hindi. The western scholars like M. Winternitz included the Jaina literary accounts in their Histories of Indian literature.
Of course, all these books are very much valuable, but I feel that besides these, a comprehensive brief survey of the whole Jaina literature is necessary. This brief sketch is the further effort of writing history of Jaina literature from a different viewpoint.
2. Nature of the Project:
In this project, century-wise, language-wise, author-wise and subject-wise survey of Jaina literature is presented simultaneously in a tabular form. Century-wise division is the crux of the project. The whole Jaina literature is written in five middle Indo-Aryan languages viz. Ardhamāgadhi, Jaina Sauraseni, Jaina Mahārāstrī, Sanskrit and Apabhraíśa. The sequence of the language is very important because these languages appear on the horizon of Jaina literature serially. Authors of each century are noted down in the table alphabetically. The subject of each work is noted, of course, in a broad sense. At the end of each century, critical observations are given in a brief manner. These observations pertain to the languages used in the century, eminent authors in the century and the variety of subjects in the century. At the end of the project comprehensive conclusive remarks are given based on the observations of each century.
3. Methodology Used in the Project: i) Collection of the necessary data, ii) Century-wise sorting of the data, iii) Language-wise sorting in each century,
