Harmless Soul

Author(s): W J Johnson, Dayanand Bhargav
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas

Page 18

Bondage and liberation according to the
early Śvetāmbara canon
1.1 Early Jainism - Primary sources and chronology
To determine the earliest Jaina view of the mechanism of bondage, I have referred to the Āyāramga, Sūyagadamga, Dasaveyāliya, and Uttarajjhayaņa Suttas, although some reference is also made to later canonical texts, especially to the fifth Anga of the Svetāmbara canon, the Viyāhapannatti (Bhagavai).1
The Jaina canon presents considerable problems of chronology; of the texts named above, however, the Ayāramga and the Süyagadamga are almost universally agreed to be the oldest on grounds of language and metre. And within these two, the first suyakka mdha (śrutaskandha) of each text is thought to contain the earliest material in each case. There is less agreement about the Dasaveyāliya and Uttarajjhayaņa, although both Schubring and Alsdorf accept them, at least in part, as the oldest texts in the canon, along with the two already named.? Alsdorf remarks that nothing really contradicts the idea that the doctrines contained in these most ancient Jaina texts go back to the time of Mahāvīra, and that even there one does not get to their roots. Any precise dating,
1 When I use the term 'canon' I am, of course, referring to the Svetāmbara texts. The Digambaras, as is well-known, deny that a canon survives. See, for instance, JPP pp. 49-52.
2 See, for example, Schubring 1962, p. 81; JPP p. 53; cf. Alsdorf 1965, p. 28, and in general Alsdorf's analyses of āryā metre to establish chronology: āryās indicating more recent material, sloka or tristubh that which is earlier (e.g. 1966 and 1962-63). On the history of the early canon, see also Alsdorf 1977. . 3 Schubring 1962, p. 81; Alsdorf 1965, p. 28.
4 Alsdorf 1965, p. 28.