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10. Gandhārī
11. Sarvāstrā
Mahājvālā
12. Mānavī
Ancient Jaina Hymns
Mahavidya No. No. 21 2 and Vidyanikāya No. 3
13. Vairotyā
14. Acchuptă
15. Mānasī
16. Mahāmānasī....
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No. 16
B. C. Bhattacharya ( 1c. p. 164 ), who also noticed that there are "clear points of identity between Vidyā-devīs and Śāsana-devīs, not only regarding names, but also attributes, etc.", has come to the conclusion that "the Vidyā-devīs in conception were modelled after the Yakṣiņis", and this "on the ground of the priority of the Yaksiņis as connected in mythology and ritual with the Tīrthankaras". It does not seem, however, that such a priority can be proved for the Śāsanadevīs as a class, leaving aside individual cases. I think, the above synopsis goes, on the contrary, strongly against this theory. For, the list of the Vidya-devīs of the Śvetambaras (vide ‘Nirvāṇakalika') exactly agrees with that of the Digambaras (vide ‘Pratiṣṭhāsära') not only with regard to the names themselves, but also to their order (deviations being restricted to their attributes), while, on the other hand, the lists of the Śāsanadevīs ( vide the same two works) differ from each other so strikingly both in names and order (not to speack of the attributes) that in fact only three out of the 24 can be recognized at first sight as mutual replica (viz., Nos. 1, 23 and 24). This leads to the conclusion that the common list of the Vidya-devīs must go back to the time before the schizma of the Jaina-sangha into Digambaras and Śvetāmbaras had occurred, and that it has been handed down unaltered from generation to generation up to this day, while the lists of the names of the Śāsana-devīs,
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