Jain Journal 1980 10

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 15

OCTOBER, 1980
created a rddhi called pada-drstivāda-anusäritva, probably because the Drşțivada which occupies a part of 12 Angas cannot represent the Anga class. At any rate, the Drstivāda consists of the then current theoretical problems discussed in the later canonical stages, and many texts as such must have been really lost. And since these texts must have been lost not in the very remote past, it is not quite fit to render to this pada... prābhịta-anga-anusāritva a great task of destroying jñānāvarana karma and darsanavarana karma. For otherwise, it makes easy for many sages to attain omniscience, and this is absolutely not wanted. Thus the then Jaina theoreticians had to struggle to find a wayout in order to establish a more powerful rddhi that has more authoritative literature as its object than the Anga class. They made it successfully in the following way.
The Drștivada consists of 5 sections, i.e. Parikrama, Sutra, Purvagata, Anuyoga and Culikā. The arrangement of these 5 sections clearly reveal the course of debate, of which purvagata must mean purvapaksa. 12 The Jaina theoreticians caught sight of this 3rd section called purvagata, for it contains the word 'purva' meaning "old" or "early", and established a literature called Purva which was postulated to form a more authoritative class than the Anga class. The purvagata in the Drstivāda consists of 14 books, thus the church authorities established the Purva literature in 14 books likewise. They created the rddhi called 14 purvadharatva out of this Purva literature, and entrusted with it a task of eradicating jñānāvarana karma and darsanāvarana karma.
The Purva literature that is the object of 14 purvadharatva thus came into being as a more authoritative class of literature than the Anga class, even though it was directly born in analogy of the purvagata in the 12th Anga. In another word, the Purva had nothing to do with the purvagata when it was established as an independent literature. In that case, how did the then Jaina authorities assume the nature and content of the Purva ?
The Bhagavati XX.8 mentions that each Tirthankara preaches the Purva, 11 Angas and Drstivāda. Mahavira is therefore regarded as the source of 14 Purvas and 12 Angas in his Tirtha. Then, the Purva must have been understood as consisting of Mahavira's personal knowledge and views expressed in his life time which were not compiled or systematizęd into the form of texts in the sacred literature of the Jainas.
12 W. Schubring : Ibid., § 38 ; H. Jacobi : Ibid., p. xlv.