Jain Journal 1993 04

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

Page 45

204
JAIN JOURNAL
IV
The doctrines of Jainism are embalmed and treasured up in the canonical literature of the Jainas compiled at a much later time. After the nirvana of Mahavira, in the fourth-third centuries B.C., after a famine in Păţaliputra, the Jainas were divided into two broad sects : Svetambara and Digambara after the return of some monks from the South. So their canonical literature (Āgamas), though originally based on the sermons of Mahāvira, is also different. Mahavira was not the composer of these texts, but these were compiled by his disciple Indrabhūti Gautama who, in turn, preached these doctrines to Sudharma who again related these texts to his disciple Jambusvāmi. It is belived by both the sects that originally the Jaina sacred texts were preserved in the 14 Pūrvas and 12 Angas including the Drsțivada. The knowledge of the 14 Pūrvas continued only down to Sthulabhadra, the 8th patriarch after Mahăvira, the next 7 patriarchs down to Vajra knew only ten Purvas, and after that time the remaining Pūrvas were gradually lost, until at the time when canon was written down in books in 980 after the nirvana of Mahavira (i.e. 454 A.D.). So all the Pūrvas and the 12th Anga Dșstivāda were lost. What remains is the 11 Angas and these eleven Angas are the oldest part of their Siddhānta. The Svetāmbaras accept the Āgamas which consist of 45 texts divided into 11 Angas, 12 Upāngas, 10 Paiņņas, 6 Cheda-sūtras, 1 Nandi, 1 Anuyogadvāra, and 4 Mülasūtras. The Digambaras do not accept these Āgama texts at all; on the contrary, they have their own canonical texts comprising of almost 45 books under the name of Şarkhandāgama, Kasayapähuda, Mahābandha, Tiloyapannatti, etc., and they claim that the lost Drstivāda has been restored and preserved by them in their canonical literature. Without going into controversy it can be said that for Jainistic studies all these books are complementary and supplementary to each other. It is a fact worth noting that the Svetāmbara Agama texts are written in Ardhamāgadbi, while the Digambara texts are in Sauraseni. In both cases, the texts are either in prose or in verse, or in prose and verse mixed. In course of time, a large literature of glosses and commentaries has grown up round the Agama texts of both the sects. Besides these, the Jainas possess separate works in close material agreement with the former, which contain systematic expositions of their faith in Prakrit and Sanskrit. Gradually, the Jainas have covered all branches of literature, such as, cosmogony and cosmology, theogony and philosophy, folk-lore and tradition, tales and stories, ornate kāvyas
7 Seo Jacobi, Jainism, ERE, p. 467.