Doctrine of Jainas

Author(s): Walther Shubring, Wolfgang Beurlen
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas

Page 18

DOCTRINE OF THE JAINAS
The most important of those philosophers was Gośāla Maskarıputra, the head of the Ājīvika sect, whose interesting career has been repeatedly treated by HOERNLEI. That Asoka knew the Jains under the name of nigantha (Topra edict 7, 26) was BÜHLER's statement. Their early history in so far as it is reflected by Hemacandra in his Parisistaparyan (the Sthavirāvali) and in legends pertaining to it, is due to JACOBI no less than is the right interpretation of what is called the schism that led to the separation of the Svetāmbara and Digambara communities They did not, as old time would have it, separate by an act of violence but gradually, untıl, eventually, both partners became aware of their differences.
§ 4. It might have been expected that continued Jain research in Europe should have led to the origin of a Jaina Text Society as a counterpart to the well-known Pali Text Society. PISCHEL expressed his hope in this directions, but things took a different course The edition of canonical texts_which, of course, was the most important–did not go on methodically, but as circumstances would have it. We are glad to say that the Jains themselves came to help, if, to be true, in their own style The Āgamodaya-Samiti, founded at Mhesana in 1915, has published most works of the Svetāmbara Siddhānta and many more non-canonical texts. These handy prints mark a great progress as compared with the monstrous volumes mentioned above. The classical commentary in Sanskrit has been added. It is wanting in the Jain Sūtra Battīsī which was a rather primitive undertaking (Hardarabad 1920), though Rsi (ie Sadhu) Āmolak4 had contributed a Hindi paraphrase.
1 Uvās II app, Encyclop of Religion and Ethics I, p. 259ff Later publications see § 18 -A full account of Schools and Sects in Jaina Literature by Amulyachandra SEN, C 1931,
2 ZDMG 46, p. 91, Ep Ind 2,274 Acc to the former place the discovery is due to LASSEN
3 SPAW 1903, fu PISCHEL lived half a century too carly to see the foundation of the Prakrit Text Society on a large scale in 1953 For the first Volume sce § 56
4 The same as Amolakh Rsiji, the author of Mukti Sopān (Ha darabad 1915), born in S 1933, as is evident from the preface