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
(12) We come across the names of certain works in Nandi (s. 44)
which tally with those of all the 12 (or 13) Uvangas. If these works are identical, these Uvangas are at least as old as the Nandī. From fn. 3, p. 18 it may be inferred that some of them, if not all, are not later than Samvat 114, the year in which
Vajrasvāmin died. (13) In Nandī, the names of the Uvangas 1 to 5 are found included in
the kāliya-suya group whereas the names of the rest in the
ukkāliya-suya group. (14) Only the name of the author of the 4th Uvanga is recorded
whereas the rest of the Uvangas are anonymous. (15) The 12 Uvangas are not arranged according to their dates of
compostion; for, otherwise the 5th Uvanga would have been assigned a place prior to the 4th on the ground that it was commented upon by Bhadrabāhusvāmin about 200 years before Arya Syāma Sūri composed the 4th Uvanga; for, this Sūri is said to have been living in Vira Saṁvat 376 or 386. Consequently the underlying principle adopted in fixing the order of the Uvangas seems to be based upon the consideration of their associations
(real or assumed) with the 12 Angas viz. Āyāra etc. (16) The Uvangas are subsidiary to the Angas; but on that account they
are not their glosses or explanations but they rather develop some
point or points referred to in the Angas. Cheyasutta - This word or its variant Chedasutta is a term which is to be found only in the Jaina works; for, it seems that neither the Vaidikas nor the Bauddhas have adopted it to denote any class of their sacred or secular works. Chedasūtra is its Samskrta equivalent. It does not seem to have been defined by any sufficiently ancient author. So its meaning has become more or less a matter of conjecture. Prof. Schubring (Kalpasūtra, p. 8 and Orientalistische Literaturzeitung, 1924, 484) assumes that the experessions Cheda-sūtra and Müla-sūtra are derived from Cheda and Müla, two kinds of penances? mentioned in 1. In all there are 10 types of penances. See Jiyakappa (v. 4).