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CHAPTER XI
Śvetāmbara Canonical Literature
According to the tradition, current among the Śvetāmbara Jainas, the Jaina sacred texts were first collected and edited at Pățaliputra over 160 years after the demise of Lord Mahāvīra. The earliest version of this tradition is to be found in the Avasyakacurni1 of Jinadāsagani Mahattara, who lived in the second half of the seventh century AD. The great Śvetambara writer Haribhadra, who lived in the mid-eighth century AD, has also referred to this council.3 The following story is told regarding this council.
Sthulabhadra was one of the two sons of Śakaṭāla, the minister of king Mahāpadma. After living with Kośā, a famous courtesan of the city of Pataliputra for a period of twelve years, he renounced the world under Sambhūtavijaya without suffering any transgression. Now it so happened that there was a famine at Pāțaliputra during the time of the ninth Nanda' and the monks were forced to leave the city. The famine lasted for twelve years, and when the monks returned, they discovered that many portions of the canon were lost. Sthulabhadra then, on his own initiative, convened a council of learned Jaina monks at Pāṭaliputra to collect the entire canon. The monks however discovered that the twelfth Anga, the Dṛṣṭivāda, could not be recollected and the council decided to send 500 monks including Sthulabhadra, to Bhadrabahu, who was then living in Nepal and was engaged in mahāpāṇa-mahāprāṇa meditation there. He was the only monk alive at that time who had the complete knowledge of the Dṛṣṭivada. Within a short time however all but Sthulabhadra left Nepal as they could not face the situation there. Bhadrabahu, we are told, taught Sthulabhadra the fourteen Purvas (an important part of the Dṛṣṭivāda) withholding the meaning of the last four texts because for some reason he was not permitted to teach these to anyone else. Later on, with the death of Sthulabhadra (215 years after the demise of Mahāvīra), even the verbal embodiment of these four Purvas came to an end. Since then the knowl
