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
two Puvvas. As a passing reference, I may add that amongst persons who knew only 11 Angas and who were thus not conversant with any one of the Puvvas, are mentioned Naksatra, Jayapāla, Pandu, Dhruvasena and Kamsa. The last died in or about Vira Samvat 565. Then we come across the names of persons who knew Ayāra, the 1st Anga only. They are : Subhadra, Yaśobhadra, Bhadrabāhu II and Lohārya. This brings us down to Vira Samvat 683. The end of this year marked the extinction of the Jaina Āgamas in their entirety. This view, strange as it is, is advocated by some of the Digambaras, and it has led some of the Svetambaras to question the very authority of the Digambara extant works.
From this exposition it must have been seen that one and all the 14 Puvvas were not simultaneously lost or forgotten but that their knowledge gradually dwindled so that by Vira Samvat 1000, the Puvvagaya became extinct.
This finishes the discussion about the loss of the main section of Ditthivāya. So it now remains to note the stages about the loss of its
aining four sections. But as it requires an investigation about their contents I defer its treatment for the time being, and in the meanwhile I note the various reasons assigned by modern scholars for the loss of Ditthivaya in general and the 14 Puvvas in particular.
Prof. Jacobi in his introduction (p. XLVI) to S. B. E. (Vol. XXII) observes :
“Professor A. Weber assigns as the probable cause of the Drishtivāda being lost, that the development of the Svetāmbara sect had arrived at a point where the diversity of its tenets from those embodied in that book became too visible to be passed over. Therefore the Drishtivāda, which contained the Purvas, fell into neglect. I cannot concur in Professor Weber's opinion seeing that the Digambaras also have lost the Pūrvas, and the Angas to boot. It is not probable that the development of Jainism during the two first centuries after the Nirvana should have gone on at so rapid a pace that its two principal sects should have been brought to the necessity of discarding their old canon. For, as stated above, after the splitting of the church in these two sects the philosophical system of the Jainas remained stationary, since it is nearly the same with both sects. As regards ethics, both sects, it is true, differ more. But as the extant canon of the Svetambaras is not falling into neglect, though many practices enjoined in it have long since been abandoned, it is not more probable that they should have been more sensible on the same score at the time when the Purvas formed their