History of Canonical Literature of Jainas

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

Page 26

GENESIS OF THE JAINA SCRIPTURES And hence the knotty problem before us is: Is this difference really an outcome of some deliberate understanding or is it purely accidental, and as such it has no such significance as we may be inclined to attribute ? In other words, did this difference arise because in course of enumerating the sections of Ditthivaya, no special attention was paid to their order - the order being then looked upon as immaterial and enumeration the main goal to be achieved ? I do not know if there is any source which throws light on this problem. So I may try to solve this problem by assuming for the present that these orders represent two different views regarding the composition (racana) and the subsequent arrangement (sthāpanā) of the five sections of Ditthivāya with a view to facilitating their study. I have not come across any reference explicit or implicit wherefrom we can deduce that it was rather some other section of Ditthivaya which was first composed and not Puvvagaya comprising 14 Puvvas. It is true that there is a possiblity to construe that the composition of the 14 Puvvas is not to be taken in quite a literal sense; but it, after all, refers to the composition of Ditthivāya in its entirety though 14 Puvvas are specifically 'mentioned
of their importance and the consequent unique position they hold, not only so far as the 12th Anga is concerned but all the 12 Angas are concerned. But even this construction does not at all improve the situation.
It appears that looking to the nature of the five sections they must have been composed in the very order in which they are mentioned in Nandī, and that the other order only reflects the attitude that can be taken regarding the study and teaching of Aņuöga, the 4th section of Ditthivāya. To put it explicitly, on seeing that upakrama, niksepa, anugama and naya form the four entrances to anuyoga or exposition, one may be inclined to believe that the Anuöga in question, too, is associated with these four entrances. If this is correct, it may be added that it is an open secret that one has to go through the first two entrances before studying a scripture (strictly speaking its portion), and
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This so to say furnishes us with an example of the figure of speech known as 'synecdoche'.