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BANERJEE: CHRONOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT OF JAIN LITERATURE
207 Umāsvāti/Umāsvāmī, Kundakunda, Vattakara, Kārttikeyasvāmi, Siddhasena Divākara, Samantabhadra and the like are in a floating stage and they vary from the first century A.D. to the 7th century A.D. The dates of all these authors need not be taken for granted. All the dates are liable to be changed in accordance with researches in subsequent years.
It goes without saying that these charts can be useful only if they are used in the right way. The main purpose of this chronology is to get an idea of which works of authors are to be put in which century. It is a century-wise development of Jain works and authors.
The aim of this article is simple. It gives only the factual information, such as, the dates of an important author or work as the case may be or the time of a religious or philosophical movement. The main purpose of this chart is to put the events or the names of authors or works into a chronological order, so that one can see which works belong to which century. I believe that it will help scholars to write the history of Jainism in a chronological order.
There is no need to say that this chronological chart is not complete in any way. One can utilise this chart only to write the history of Jainism. The history of Jainism is rather complicated and not systematic. It develops in India in a different way. This chart might help scholars to write the history of Jainism in a proper way.
The main chart has several sub-sections. The authors and works not mentioned in the main chart may be found in sub-sections. All these charts are complementary and suplementary to each other. I believe that there may be many authors and works whose names may not be found in any of the list, but that will not deter the main purpose of this chart. The readers are only requested to fill in the omitted authors and works within the purview of this chart. This is a sort of working model upon which the literary history of Jainism can be built up. It should be remembered that the entire mass of Jain literary sources cannot be encompassed into the limited space and time. The works which are not published are not included here, except in a few cases which have a history in Jainism. The Jain works in Prakrit (including Māhārāstrī, Sauraseni, Apabhramsa) and Sanskrit are only included.
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