History of Canonical Literature of Jainas

Author(s): Hiralal R Kapadia, Nagin J Shah
Publisher: Prakrit Text Society Ahmedabad

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THE CANONICAL LITERATURE OF THE JAINAS Parallels in non Jaina Literature Just as the word tripitaka and its Pāli equivalent tipitaka occur in the Bauddha literature so do the word ganipitaka and its Prākệta equivalent ganipidaga in the Jaina literature. This ganipidaga is twelve-fold inasmuch as it consists of 12 Angas. Out of them Ayāra may be compared with the Vinayapitaka of the Bauddhas, and Thāna and Samavāya, with their Anguttaranikāya. Further, the stories pertaining to the fructification of merit and demerit which are embodied in Vivāgasuya may be compared with Avadānaśataka and Karmaśataka of the Bauddhas. Similarly the Paësi-Kesi dialogue occurring in Rāyapaseniya has a parallel in the Pāyāsisutta of the Dīghanikāya Nr. 23. In this connection Prof. Winternitz says in The Jainas in the History of Indian Literature. (p. 147):
"The original may in this case be the Jaina dialogue, but it is also possible that both have to be derived from an older Itihāsa-samvāda, forming part of the ancient ascetic literature."2
All the Cheyasuttas such as Nisīha etc., have almost the same contents as we meet with under the name of vinaya in the Bauddha literature. Just as Pajjosanākappa deals with the life of Lord Mahāvīra, so does Lalitavistara, a Bauddha work, so far as the life of Lord Buddha is concerned. The famous saying of King Janaka of Mithilā (after he had adopted asceticism) viz. 'How boundless is my wealth as I possess nothing! When Mithilā is on fire, nothing that is mine will be burnt', occurring in the Mahābhārata? (XII, 178, 2) is found in the Jātaka Nr. 539 g. 125 and has a parallel in the Uttarajjhayana (IX), a work about which Prof. Winternitz remarks: 'from a literary point of view perhaps the most interesting book.' The legend of King Nami where the ascetic ideal
1. See Prof. A. M. Ghatage's article 'A few parallels in Jaina and Buddhist works"
published in the Annals of B. O. R. I. (Vol. XVII, pt. IV, pp. 340-350.) 2. Prof. Winternitz in The Jainas in the History of Indian Literature (p. 145, fn.) says:
'If I am not mistaken, E. Leumann (Z. D. M. G. 48, 1894, p. 65 ff.) was the first to speak of a 'Parivrājaka Literature', though not quite in the same sense as I use the term 'Ascetic Literature'. See my lecture on 'Ascetic Literature of Ancient India'
in Some Problems of Indian Literature (Calcutta University Press, 1925), p. 21 ff.” 3. 'In many cases verses and Itihasa-samvādas of the Mahābhārata have actually been
traced in Pali Gāthās, and in Jaina books. A very remarkable example of the latter is the fine dialogue between a father and his son in the Mahabharata, XII, 175 (repeated XII, 277), which occurs also - with variants in the Mārkandeya-Purāna, X ff., in the Buddhist Jataka (Nr. 509 in Fausböll's edition), and again in the Uttarajjhayana sutta (Adhy, XIV) of the Jainas.”—The Jainas in the His. of Ind. Lit. (p. 146)