Doctrine of Jainas

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

Page 93

THE CANON
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and Mūla-suttas, of which only the first name seems to be old. To judge from its appearance in the introduction to Uvangas 8-12 there was a time when no more than just these Uvangas were called by this name, i.e. "secondary Angas” because of their being closely related in contents and style with Angas 8, 9 and 11%. Later on out of those and other texts (all of which may be found among the ananga-pavittha) there was a group formed by imitation of the 12 Angas not only as to numbering but as to its inner structure as well. For just as the Anga group starts with two works mostly composed in a high poetical and prosaic style (Bambhac. and Gāhāsolasaga) and then proceeds with dogmatical ones (Thāna and Samav.) followed by minor legendary accounts (Uvās, etc.), so does the Uvanga section', as can be seen in the course of this chapter. Apart from the Angas, the Uvangas are the only section of a stationary size. Most various is the number of the Painnas or mixed text”. But the different lists betray a nucleus formed by Paiņnas of a disciplinary character, and among these we find a group of ten which are the most frequently quoted. The various classes of the Āgama seem to have been arranged according to the diminishing number of their members, for, historically, the Cheyasuttas ought to have preceded the Painnas. The latter dwell upon the monks' practice in more or less broad gāhā treatises, that is to say, in a remarkably imitative way, while among the Cheyasuttas (of which there are 5-7) we have the most ancient summaries of discipline. The name of this group appears as cheya-ggantha in Āv 8,55 and certainly means the punishment of cheya, i.e. the shortening of either a monk's or a nun's seniority. And it is this seniority upon which the communal life of either is based. When seniority is dropped altogether this is called müla and, indeed, the culprit then must start from the Croot. But this is the situation of novices, too,
1. The AUTHOR, Worte p. 8 .
2. Possibly also Anga 10 which once looked different from the one we have before us to-day (8 46).
3. The AUTHOR, Worte p 8-But it is a fiction beld by Jambūdv. lb and others that the Angas and Uvangas bearing the same number were related with each other
4. Comp. v. KAMPTZ, Sterbefasten p. 5 ff.