Canonical Literature Of Jainas

Author(s): H R Kapadia
Publisher: Hindi Granth Karyalay

Page 80

III]
REDACTION OF THE JAINA CANON
(ix) This codification acted as a preventive from further modernization of the sacred works.
67
Before concluding this chapter, I think it necessary to point out the pitfall to which some are likely to succumb, in case they confound this codification of the Jaina sastras with that of their composition by identifying these two different events. It will be a sheer folly, therefore, to believe that the dates of the compositions of the various sastras codified at Valabhi are none else but the date of their codification. This folly, if committed, will not only amount to accepting at best terminus ad quem as the date of the sastras but taking it to be the same as terminus a quo. In short, the dates of the composition of the various sastras codified are much earlier than the date of their codification though it is true that the dates of the new portions that may have been then incorporated in the sastras are the same as that of the codification.
There is another pitfall one should be beware of. Some of the Digambaras maintain that all the canonical treatises got forgotten during the 12 years of famine in the reign of Candragupta Maurya, and the canon as shaped at Paṭaliputra by the Svetambaras is at best a patch-work and is not genuine. They believe that the end of the Vira Samvat 683 or so marks the complete extinction of the Jaina canon. This sounds very strange; for, one can understand if some works or their parts get forgotten in course of time, in adverse circumstances; but a sweeping remark that not even an iota of the Jaina canon survived the year Vira Samvat 683 or so passes comprehension, unless it may be due to a miracle or a catastrophe of terrible intensity. So far as I know, there is no record or reference to any such thing in the annals of the Indian History.
1 There is no mention of any overflowing of the banks by some gigantic river or that of the shores by the Arabian sea or the Indian ocean leading to the submersion of the country all around and the consequent death of each and every one who knew the Jaina canon in part or entirety. No deluge is referred to as submerging this sub-continent. There is no reference to any volcanic eruption of which the lava reduced the surroundings to nothing. No conflagration laying its cruel hands on the country inhabited by the Jainas,