History of Jaina Monachism

Author(s): S B Deo
Publisher: Deccan College Research Institute

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S. B. DEO Granting, however, a comparatively earlier date for the Niryuktis on the Acāränga and the Sūtrakytānga, he comes to the conclusion that "the later limit for these works can be approximately settled with the help of a few considerations. We find that the Avasyaka-Niryukti is often quoted by the canonical works like the Nandi-Sūtra, the Anuyogadvāra and the Samavayānga which attained to their present form as early as the fifth century A.D., if not earlier. That the arrangement of the canonical works as settled in the Council of Valabhi included two Niryuktis as books in the group called the Mūlasūtras, as also the fact that the ten Niryuktis have for their basis the older arrangement of the canon into works called Angas and Angabāhiras lead us to suppose that they must be considerably older than the second council. The latest reference to a Jaina patriarch is to be found in the Daśavaikūlika Niryukti (v. 81), where it refers to Govinda Vācaka who lived in the 3rd century A.D. So we can put the collection of these Niryuktis between 300 and 500 A.D., a period which will explain all the references found in the various Niryuktis. But it is much more probable that the reference to Govinda is a later addition, in which cases we can put the collection a little earlier. 87
Muni PUNYA VIJAYAJI, after carefully examining the tradition which ascribes the Chedasūtras as well as the Niryuktis to Bhadrabāhu comes to the conclusion that the Chedasūtrakāra Bhadrabāhu was different from the Niryuktikāra Bhadrabāhu.
Moreover, in some of the Niryuktis we come across references to postBhadrabāhu persons.88
For the above reasons we may not be wrong in ascribing the Niryuktis to a period later than the Chedasūtras. (b) The Bhāsas :
The next category of commentorial literature consists of the Bhāşyas which are written in Prākrit verses, and are very much intermingled with the text of the Niryuktis proper.
Eleven books of the Canon seem to have been equipped with the Bhāșyas.89 They are:
(1) Avaśyaka. (2) Daśavaikālika.
87. 1. H. Q., Vol. 12, pp. 273-74.
88. Ref. to Sthūlabhadra in Uttar-N. vs. 91-100; Vajraswāmin and Arya Rakşita in Avaśyaka-N. vs. 764-773.
89. KAPADIA, H. R., The Canonical Literature of the Jainas, p. 187.