Historical Facts About Jainism

Author(s): Lala Lajpatrai
Publisher: Jain Associations of India Mumbai

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of teachers and schools in the Sthaviravali of the Kalpasutra, which cannot be a pure fabrication, shows the interest, taken in the preservation of its records. With respect to the sacred books of the Svetambaras, he rejects a portion of the tradition, which alleges that Devarddhi in the fifth or sixth century caused the Siddhanta to be written in books and introduced the use of Mss. in the instructions of pupils and laymen. Ile takes only the latter statement to be true and assuines that Mss. of the Angas and other sacred works did exist at an earlier period, 'because it is hardly credible that the Jaina inonks should never before have attempted to write down what they had to commit to memory'. Proceeding to a consideration of the character of the Jainia scriptures, he adduces several points which prove them, or, at least portions of them to be much older than the fiftlı or sixth century A.D. Their astronomical system sllows 110 trace of the influence of the Greeks, which made itself felt in India before that time. Their language approaclies closer to the Pali of the Buddhists than to the Prakrit of Hala's Gatliakoslia. The inetres of the poetical portions of the Acharanga and of the Sutrakritanga show more modern forms than those, occuring in the Dhammapada and other works of the Pali canon, but are more ancient than those, use in the Lalitavistara and generally in the Gathas of the Northern Buddhists as well as in the later Brahmanical literature.